Introducing LoadLabs

LoadLabs could best described as a labor of love. But our HR department said we could not describe it like that. So we will say it is the culmination of a lot of hard work. LoadLabs is a wholly owned subsidiary of ProtoTest, llc. ProtoTest has been around since 1998 and has had laser like focus on the QA and software testing industry. We have been providing QA consulting services and staff augmentation for 12 years now. In all that time we have always done a lot of load and performance testing.

Over the last few years load and performance testing has become a larger part of our business. As it grew I got tired of hearing the question 'why is load and performance testing so stinkin' expensive!?' I would then go into a long protracted diatribe about the evils of high end consulting companies and the outrageous costs of proprietary tools. Don't get me wrong. I think the long standing proprietary tools out there (LoadRunner, SilkPerformer, etc..) are great tools. I have used them for many years and countless companies perform load and performance testing using those very tools. The issue is that their cost put them out of reach of many companies that approached us for load and performance testing. I see no redeeming value in the ultra high end consulting companies. Anyone who charges $500/hr better be capable of doing the load and performance testing, performing brain surgery, and cooking a gourmet dinner - all in the same day! But I've been wrong before. If you see a place for them please let me know.

Instead of getting on a soap box and giving my speech or shrugging my shoulders, we decided to do something about it. The timing seemed right. There was a proliferation of open-source load and performance tools (most of which are worth about $0) as well as incredible cloud based options, new cutting edge proprietary tools that are a fraction of the cost of the old school proprietary tools. So we knew we had tool options that we could combine with our experience. But there was still 1 problem - cost. Call any company that provides load and performance testing services and ask them how much it will cost. What are you told? Often we were told 'it varies'. Or we were given a range that was huge. How could we make a decision based on 'it varies' or a huge range? Simply put we couldn't and we couldn't expect our customers to either. That is where the thought of fixed price load and performance testing was born.

We then set out on a mission to create LoadLabs. We were determined to offer great load and performance testing for websites at a fixed price with clear objectives and deliverables. Typing that sentence out makes it sounds so simple we don't know why it wasn't done before. It seems to clear. Customers have been asking for it. Now they have. We are happy to introduce to the world LoadLabs. We are changing the way load and performance testing is done. It is going to be a wild ride!

~ Lawrence Nuanez