Getting Started in Jmeter

A while back feeling increasingly frustrated by commercial load testing tools I decided to take Goranka Bjedov's advice in her presentation Using Open Source Tools for Performance testing.

I made the switch to
 Jmeter and since I've been a much happier tester. I had used Jmeter in the past, but I had never really used it for projects involving complicated flows and correlations. Generally when I say correlations I'm referring to the process of matching up needed information for further requests by parsing the response of earlier requests. I shy-ed away from attempting to make the correlations myself because I felt that it required a lot of time up front to get the test working, and also required a higher level of maintenance for each script. Additionally I was concerned about how the added effort needed to analyze this large csv result that was full of all types of noise. While I found that my concerns were valid, it does take a longer time to create a script, and it does require some maintenance as do all scripts, but what I hadn't expected was the efficiency and forced process that creating Jmeter scripts lead me to adapt that had been absent while using the commercial tools.
<rant>
I'd like to discuss how to effectively tackle Jmeter scripts, and Jmeter results in a further post and focus more on the basics for those just getting stated with Jmeter.
</rant>
If you're considering switching to Jmeter I think Goranka makes the point very clearly. Jmeter can do mostly what any other commercial load testing tool can do there are very slim differences. The key points can be summed up on the following:

• read the manual
• become familiar with the Jmeter digest using Marc Mail
• identify a list of key blogs who sum up the ..less easy to read/follow parts of Jmeter
• find the process of script creation that works for you.
• find someone who uses Jmeter tips from these fellow users are invaluable and can save tons of time..

3 posts that I feel are worth bookmaking and reviewing are:
Tim's post on using regular expressions in Jmeter
http://90kts.com/blog/2008/jmeter-tips-and-tricks-correlating-with-regular-expressions/
on representing transactions as states from a simulation model
http://90kts.com/blog/2008/jmeter-tips-and-tricks-application-simulation-models/
Coreplex Jmeter variables, parameters,and UDV's
http://coreplex.blogspot.com/2008/10/jmeter-variables-vs-properties-vs.html