Locust in Kubernetes for Performance Testing: A Powerful Combination

Performance testing ensures your applications gracefully handle the anticipated—and even the unanticipated—demands of real-world use. Locust, an open-source load testing framework, and Kubernetes, a container orchestration system, offer a potent mix for streamlining and scaling your performance testing efforts.

Why Locust?

• Python Power: Locust uses Python to define user behavior, making test creation intuitive and flexible. If you can code it, Locust can simulate it.
• Distributed Testing: Effortlessly simulate massive numbers of concurrent users by running Locust in a distributed mode.
• Elegant Web UI: Monitor your tests in real-time, gain deep insights into performance metrics, and identify bottlenecks thanks to Locust's user-friendly interface.

Why Kubernetes?

• Scalability: Seamlessly provision and manage the resources your Locust deployment needs. Spin up workers as required and scale down when testing is complete.
• Resilience: Kubernetes protects your test environment. If a worker node goes down, it automatically restarts pods, minimizing test disruption.
• Portability: Replicate your Locust test infrastructure across different environments (testing, staging, production) with ease.

Create Locust Manifests

kubectl create ns locust
kubectl apply -f . -n locust
kubectl get svc -n locust (Copy the end point <endpoint>:8089)

Update configmap if code changed

kubectl apply -f configmap.yaml -n locust && kubectl set env deploy/locust-master test=<random number> - locust && kubectl set env deploy/locust-worker test=<random number> -n locust