We’ve talked at length about what load testing is and our industry-leading propriety tool for load testing, Cyrex Swarm (which is currently in a beta for our partners!). Our engagements and work with load testing has evolved significantly, improving and growing to where it is now. We’ve deployed our testing technology to traditional products and even blockchain products countless times. Our Swarm product, while only relatively recently announced, is not new to us. Before its announcement, we had been using the technology that would become Swarm for years!  

This is a tool that has been tempered and honed, day-to-day, for nearly 5 years now as it progressed through repeated benchmarking and validation. As this service grows and matures even further, we wanted to dive into our holistic, connected approach to load testing and to the options available to you as our partners.  

Managed vs Self-Serve Load Testing with Cyrex Swarm

Most of our partners utilising our load testing services are on our managed model. We’ve noticed that generally, as our partners work with us and get familiar with the system, they shift towards a self-service model.  

Managed Model

This is our standard load testing model where we take care of everything for your load testing needs. You don’t even need your own engineers, the Cyrex team will handle it all! In this version, you will receive our gold standard of service throughout with a guarantee veteran oversight for quality. It can function as a completely outsourced service model, with you having a full-hands off experience. We can involve you as much or as little as you like. The budget for this engagement is based on your needs – you’ll only be paying for what you want and need.  

You will have a dedicated team throughout the engagement, conducting the testing but also identifying and, if requested, fixing any issues that arise. We’re with you throughout the whole process until we reach the established level of service and quality you’re looking for your platform to reach.  

Self-Service Model

Self-served load testing comes down to you establishing your needs. After an initial integration by our team, where we establish your required user journey for the Swarm to load test, you are free to test as much as you like. You choose how many users, which type of load test, and when to test. The budget for this test is fixed based on the number of concurrent users per test and the duration of the test. The initial integration is the only fixed part of the cost, beyond that you’re free to test as much or as little as you’d like.  

You still get the quality of Cyrex Swarm but you obviously will be acting independently of our team. In return, you get complete freedom and flexibility to conduct testing at your own timings. No calls to the Cyrex team, no calendar checking for availability for sessions. Constant and instant access to Cyrex Swarm is the real benefit for the self-service testing model.  

Holistic Approach to Load Testing

Load testing is just the umbrella term we use for the services that fall under performance tests conducted to ensure stability and performance. It’s a generic term that covers all the tests we can provide which include stress, spike, soak, and peak testing.  

We view them all as linked and under one roof rather than separate tests under the umbrella. We view it this way because with our Swarm technology, it’s all possible under the one roof. Integration of your specific and bespoke user journey delivers your exact needs regardless of which test you are conducting. We know that the user journey is complicated and nuanced one, not something that can be simulated by simply firing thousands of packets at the server.  

What makes Load Testing with Cyrex Swarm unique?

One of our benefits is the out of the box support we offer. We spent a lot of time ensuring it was compatible with almost every single generic network library and engine on the gaming market. With Cyrex Swarm, you can simulate out of the box multiplayer gameplay for almost any title.   

We tailor our services for online multiplayer and utilise a cloud-based, performant system. If you need it, we can simulate millions of virtual players interacting and engaging with your user journey without requiring insane amounts of RAM and CPU usage. This efficiency benefits everyone as a performant system it saves both parties on time, resources, and cost.  

The Future of Cyrex Swarm

As it stands, we prepare the integration, the scripts, the typical user journey, and more. However, our roadmap is leading to some exciting developments in the future! Currently, we’re looking into a feature where our clients can tweak, alter, or otherwise modify our existing scripts for their own needs when load testing with Swarm. For the foreseeable future, we’ll be writing the scripts, but we do hope to grow towards a fully autonomous script system with our partners.  

It’s important to us to continue to build on the self-service model in flexibility. Being able to alter existing scripts would be invaluable to our partners during patching and updating. We’re currently working on the balance of flexibility without impeding on the efficiency and quality of the service. 

In need of the gold standard of load testing services for your game or product? Get in touch today to see how our penetration testing services and Swarm technology can benefit you.