In 1940, the American Football Championship Game was played between the Chicago Bears and Washington Redskins. A few weeks earlier the teams faced off and Washington won with a score of 7-3. Moving into the championship game, Chicago knew they had to make a strategic move and adapt the game to regain the upper hand. For the first time in the history of American football, a new strategy was introduced, the "T-formation”. Using this strategy, Chicago handed Washington the most lopsided margins of victory in sports history (73-0) and a Scorigami. Their adaptation resulted in the team, players and fans enjoying success from their strategic planning.
So what does this have to do with our deprecation timeline for v3.0? I’ll be honest - it’s more of a fun story than anything. But I think there are similarities. LoadImpact v3.0 (Lua), has been a tried and tested load and performance testing solution. It’s executed millions of tests and have helped thousands of users understand how their systems react to various levels of load. But as time ticks on, you learn that things can be improved. In our case, it made sense to come up with an entirely new way to think about testing rather than making small adaptations.
The new version of LoadImpact is the result of years of feedback we’ve gathered and experienced we gained. We think it will enable strategies for you to become more efficient and come to valuable conclusions, faster. Maybe even handing your opponent a 73-0 loss.
I’ve had many conversations with users regarding this transition, I’ve put together some of the most common questions and answers. If you have a question that is not listed here, please reach out using the contact info at the bottom of this post.
Why are you releasing a new version and new load generator?
Based on feedback we have received from users over the years and from our own observations, we wanted to create a more modern and open source tool for testing. We set out to address the following:
- CLI tool with developer-friendly APIs.
- Load-Test-As-Code with scripting in JavaScript.
- Easy automation and powerful performance Thresholds (Pass/Fail criteria).
- Integrates with the LoadImpact cloud to accelerate and scale your performance testing.
What is happening to the version with Lua Scripting?
As we call it, v3.0, is currently being deprecated. We plan to formally shut down v3.0 on Dec 31 2020. After this date it will not be possible to access the service, so we strongly urge you to back up and export any information you need to save.
Do I need to buy a new plan? Do I have access to v4.0?
For most users, we already added a plan that gives v4.0 access to your account. Due to pricing differences, it is at some different limits than your v3.0 plan. If you would like, you can switch to one of our current v4.0 plans on our pricing page. If you feel your needs don’t fit into what we’ve enabled or what we have available, please contact us and we can discuss other potential options.
You can view full details of your available plans on your Account page.
Where do I go if I need help getting used to v4.0?
Myself and the rest of the customer success team are here to support you. Additionally, we have our knowledge base, extensive documentation, community forum and slack channel where you can get more information.
- https://support.loadimpact.com/4.0/
- https://docs.k6.io/docs
- https://community.grafana.com/
- https://k6.io/slack/
Finally, you are always welcome to contact us directly at support@loadimpact.com. We would be happy to set up a Q&A session or walkthrough to answer your questions after you have some time to explore v4.0 on your own.