Successfully simulated load of 300% of current volumes to ensure IT infrastructure would support projected business growth.

Alertacall offers a unique service to assist potentially vulnerable people to live independently. Regular contact is maintained with customers tailored to their own individual needs and the service provided. Typically, customers either engage digitally once or twice a day by pressing an OKEachDay button on a device provided to them or they are called by a highly trained team.

All activity around engagement is logged and recorded. The data is used to generate valuable management reporting information. Analysis of customers’ patterns of engagement enables health and care providers to make better use of their resources and act preventatively.

This daily proactive approach regularly saves lives and guarantees that people get the help and support they need, even if they are unable to get it for themselves.

The Challenge

Alertacall’s business is growing rapidly and they need to be sure that their IT systems can scale to stay ahead of this growth.  They were looking for a performance test provider who could deploy quickly and execute a series of extensive performance tests to demonstrate how their systems would perform at double and then treble current volumes.  It was also important to Alertacall to engage with a partner who would coach their own IT staff through the process of performance testing and provide them with a set of documented and re-usable assets for future use. 

The Solution

Partnering with Atelier Nuage, CQE first ran a scoping workshop to really understand the Alertacall systems and applications and to agree the scope and objectives of the performance tests.  From the outset we also agreed the activity that Alertacall needed to perform such as providing a suitable test environment and monitoring the system’s performance as we put it under load.  

Next we designed and ran a series of load and duration tests using open source tools to minimise costs. We used Jmeter and SIPp to generate load from users and staff directly and via telephony. The tests run were at a “today” baseline level plus the double and treble volumes projected. In addition, tests were run to establish where the system would eventually break to understand the ceiling and the weakest component.

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The Results

Throughout design and execution the CQE team partnered closely with the Alertacall technical experts to ensure that knowledge was shared and issues were quickly identified and resolved and, ultimately, we were able to provide Alertacall with the assurance that their current systems would sustain projected business growth for the next five years.

Finally, we bundled up the assets that we had built and created a handover pack for Alertacall, along with training sessions, to give them the ability to run future performance testing on their own.