There are important licensing changes happening imminently with VSTS as part of the transition from 2008 to 2010:
- The current VSTS 2008 Test Edition can load test up to the limit of your machine. On a good day, this is 1000 users. That satisfies a lot of the cases where people need to do load testing. If it’s not, and you have multiple testers, you always all run load from your own machines, however you don’t get the same unified collection of statistics – that’s what the Load Agent & Controller software is for. It’s not a huge deal, and that is why most people don’t buy Load Agents.
- If you did need centralized collection of statistics, you’d want to buy a number of load agents, one for each CPU, at least in the 2008 SKU. If you wanted to test 10K users, you’d probably want 10 licenses (at least). But that is changing.
- In 2010, load testing licensing is no longer done by the CPU, it’s done by the virtual users!
- When you upgrade to VS 2010 Ultimate come April, your load testing ability changes to only 250 users from your workstation copy of Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. If you want to test more, you’ll want load agents. The 2010 Load Agent SKU will give you 1000 virtual users. If your hardware is not up to snuff, or your web tests are intensive, you can install a single 2010 SKU on any number boxes, but you’re limited to a total of 1000 users per SKU that you purchase.
This all sounds rather terrible, but as part of the transition, MS is offering this:
If you have purchased a 2008 Load Agent with Software Assurance, as part of the upgrade to 2010, they will give you 5x1000 Virtual Users in the 2010 Load Agent SKU. Wow!
For your benefit of pricing, that means if you buy a 2008 Load Agent with SA today, for about $8,000 you will get 5000 users in 2010. That’s a very good deal. If you wait until after April 12th, you will no longer be able to buy the 2008 SKU and you’ll have to buy the 2010 SKU. At about $8,000 per 1000 users. So if you wanted to test 5000 users come April 12th and you didn’t take advantage to get in on this deal, it will cost you 5x$8000 = $40,000! I’d say that an 80% discount is pretty good – snap it up today.
If you need help purchasing a license prior to April 12th, drop me a note at bgervin @ objectsharp.com and I can hook you up.