What's New in 2022

The new features and improvements for LoadRunner Professional and VuGen version 2022 are described below.

In this topic:

What's New video

Learn about some of the new features included in LoadRunner Professional version 2022:

Back to top

Kafka protocol

This release introduces the new Kafka protocol, used to emulate Apache Kafka events. Kafka communications are particularly useful when working with microservices.

The Kafka protocol provides Kafka scripting capabilities in the Java language. You can use the Kafka APIs to manually create your script, then add the script to a scenario in Controller. The run results are shown in the Kafka graphs in Controller and Analysis, providing statistics on events for producers and consumers.

For details, see Kafka protocol.

Back to top

DevWeb protocol

The following enhancements and fixes are included for DevWeb scripts:

• In the VuGen editor, you can now select the text to correlate within a web request, and then select the Correlate Selection option. VuGen searches backwards to find the first occurrence of the value in a snapshot, and adds a boundary extractor to the web request. (Available as tech preview.) For details, see Search and correlate selection.

• The DevWeb runtime settings use a new updated GUI with a cleaner look, and improved functionality. (Available as tech preview.) For details, see DevWeb runtime settings.

• When defining run logic for DevWeb scripts, if you select Random logic, the run percentages are now automatically divided evenly between the items. You can then edit the percentages as you want. For details, see Configure run logic.

• When running a DevWeb script, after receiving the web response, you can now view additional web request headers added during replay. For details, see Record and replay DevWeb scripts in VuGen.

Back to top

TruClient protocol

TruClient includes the following enhancements:

• The Chromium browser is upgraded to version 96.

• The TruClient Browser is upgraded to version 88.

• Security updates.

For details, see the TruClient Help Center.

Back to top

Citrix protocol

The following updates are included for the Citrix protocol:

• Replay of Citrix ICA scripts is now supported with Citrix Workspace for Windows 2109. For details, see Citrix protocol.

• The ctrx_sync_on_bitmap function now includes an AddOffsetToInput argument. When enabled, the test adjusts to changes in image position between recording and test run by adding the offset to subsequent input, for example, for the mouse-click coordinates. For details, see ctrx_sync_on_bitmap in the Function Reference.

Back to top

Silk Performer scripts

This version includes a synchronization update for replaying Silk Performer scripts in LoadRunner Professional. When using the Silk Performer global coverage APIs, the GetUserID function now returns the correct Vuser IDs.

For details, see Silk Performer scripts.

Back to top

Support for Azure Key Vault

LoadRunner Professional now works with Microsoft Azure Key Vault authentication. After installing the LoadRunner Azure API Service, you can add Azure API Service functions into your script.

In this release, LoadRunner Professional uses the service to fetch the client token and retrieve the secrets data from the Key Vault during replay.

For details, see Install the LoadRunner Azure API Service, and Azure API Functions in the Function Reference.

Back to top

Chaos testing with Gremlin

LoadRunner Professional now supports the addition of Gremlin event scenarios to your Controller scenario schedule. This enables simulated attacks on your services and environments, so that you can integrate chaos and stress testing into your test runs.

For details, see Chaos testing for scenarios.

Back to top

LoadRunner Data Hub

LoadRunner Professional now supports communication between Controller and the load generators over the LoadRunner Data Hub. The Data Hub is based on Kafka technology, providing a modernized and simplified architecture, and a more robust and stable testing environment.

For details, see LoadRunner Data Hub and Web Connector setup.

Back to top

Data export and collation

LoadRunner Professional includes the following updates for the export and collation of results data:

• You can now select to use LoadRunner Data Hub for the export and collation of raw transaction data at test runtime. For details, see Collate scenario run results.

• The summary data displayed in online Controller graphs is now automatically stored on InfluxDB. You can access InfluxDB and view the summary data from previous test runs, using a visualization tool like Grafana. For details, see Online monitor graphs.

• LoadRunner Professional now supports InfluxDB version 2.0.

Back to top

Improved scenario scheduling

This release includes improved scenario schedule functionality. When running scenarios, you can now set a runtime option so that the Vusers are initialized only once the scripts have been downloaded to the load generator. This avoids the backup of Vusers in Pending state, and allows correct ramp-up time.

For details, see Options > Runtime File Storage tab.

Back to top

System usage data for Controller and load generators

LoadRunner Professional now automatically collects system resource usage data while running a scenario, for the Controller machine and each connected load generator. A new graph is available in Controller, the Controller and Load Generator Resources graph, showing the collected data during the scenario run.

For details, see Controller and Load Generator Resources monitor.

Back to top

UTF-8 encoding for non-English character display

You can now set the load generators to perform automatic conversion of ANSI encoding to UTF-8. This ensures correct display of non-English characters in transaction names.

For details, see Convert transaction names to UTF-8 encoding.

Back to top

Service Virtualization installation

The Service Virtualization installation packages for Windows and Linux are now included with LoadRunner Professional. Service Virtualization (Virtual Service - All Protocols Unlimited license) enables performance engineers to use Virtual Services and simulations during performance testing.

Service Virtualization helps to overcome application dependencies, test component performance early and in isolation, improve quality by simulating extreme performance characteristics, and reduce cost of test environments.

For details, see the Service Virtualization Help Center.

Back to top

Technologies and platforms

This release includes the following updates:

• Windows operating system support: LoadRunner Professional installation is now supported on Windows 11 version 21H2 (build 22000.258).

• Database version support: LoadRunner Analysis now supports Microsoft SQL Server 2019 for database sessions.

• Java support: LoadRunner Professional now supports JRE/JDK version 17 for record and replay of all relevant protocols. For details, see Java code support.

Back to top

See also:

• What's New in earlier versions
• LoadRunner Professional and VuGen Readme
• Known issues
• Deprecated features and technologies
• Support Matrix