How a scaleup ensured performance, avoided crashes, and managed high user volume with Gatling Enterprise
Softwares and Load Metrics
Business Metrics
15,000+ customers (x2 in 3 years)
100+ countries covered
Tech Metrics
200 engineers in over 30 teams
10 GO per day of data processed
100 servers
30 GitHub repositories
200 deploys /month. 150 commits /day
Tech Stack
Kotlin, AWS, GitLab CI, Datadog
Use Case Overview
Aircall's primary objectives
Ensure that their telephony application could handle the increasing number of users
Provide reliable service
Aircall's additional objectives
Implement load testing as an integral part of their QA process
Improve overall product quality
About Aircall
Aircall is a phone and communication platform designed for sales and support teams. It is an entirely cloud-based voice solution, easy to use, reliable, and integrated with CRMs and critical business or conversational tools such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Intercom, Slack, Gong, and many others. Through a combination of powerful software and dedicated people, Aircall helps SMBs drive productivity and turn customer and employee satisfaction into key growth drivers.
Statistics
Location: France
Industry: Software
Turnover: 132 million USD (2022)
Employees: 800 (2022)
Gatling Enterprise Users: since 2020
"Gatling Enterprise was crucial in establishing load testing as a core practice within our engineering teams. We saw increased load testing requests and performance metrics projects, leading to improved load monitoring, application reliability, and customer satisfaction. Gatling's team provided excellent support and flexibility throughout our experience."
Maxime Doucet
QA Manager, Aircall
Compelling event
They first turned to load testing after the signature of a new large client who had one thousand users starting with Aircall and using the application at the same time.
At that time, Aircall was not able to handle this type of load, and it crashed.
They had several new potential clients that needed them to guarantee the load they were able to handle, and they had no framework or tool to do so, which led them to lose some signatures.
When they started using Gatling, they were pleasantly surprised by the support provided by the tech team, which helped them quickly improve their skills with the product.
Gatling Enterprise helped Aircall in many ways to acknowledge where their weaknesses were and to optimize their software, which led to new signatures with large clients.
Challenges
Scalability and load handling
With their significant growth of users, Aircall faced challenges in determining their application's scalability and performance under heavy loads.
Emphasizing load testing
The QA team struggled to establish a "load testing culture" within its development teams, which hindered proactive performance validation efforts.
Evaluating load testing tools
Aircall needed an efficient, cost-effective, and user-friendly load testing solution to ensure seamless performance and optimal customer experience.
Solutions
Robust load testing
Leveraging Gatling Enterprise, Aircall performed load tests on their application to validate its performance under varying user volumes.
Proactive performance testing
Gatling Enterprise allowed Aircall to incorporate performance testing early in the development process, ensuring higher product quality.
Adoption and integration
Aircall integrated Gatling Enterprise with their existing toolset, making it an essential component of their load testing and QA strategies.
Since the integration of Gatling Enterprise, smooth management of traffic, even during the holiday season.
Since Interdiscount began using Gatling Enterprise they haven’t run into any issues with traffic during Black Fridays or Cyber Monday and have been able to keep their site up and running even under strenuous traffic conditions.
Why did you choose Gatling Enterprise?
- Great user experience, with top-level support
- Interesting metrics and data provided in the results of the tests
- Well-designed product, easily creating load
- Worldwide reputation of the product
Results and Benefits
Increased load testing demand: Gatling Enterprise's success led to an increased number of load testing projects within the company, formalizing load testing as a core function. Aircall established a dedicated performance department responsible for ensuring application performance and quality.
Signature of new deals with large companies: they were able to precisely guarantee the load that Aircall was able to handle for its clients.
Optimization of their architectures: allowing them to optimize both existing architecture and newly-developed ones.
Assistance in the choice of vendors and technologies: Gatling was used as an efficient and concrete decision tool to choose certain devices, and quickly verify if they were a fit or not regarding their needs in terms of performance.
Launch of new projects that help acquire new signatures: that were load tested and optimized before they were in production, thanks to precise indicators. It allowed Aircall to guarantee in advance the performance of new projects to his new clients.
Conclusion
By choosing Gatling Enterprise, Aircall successfully addressed its challenges related to scalability and performance validation. The solution's robust load testing capabilities and cost-effectiveness made it an ideal fit for Aircall's load testing needs. As a result, Aircall now operates confidently, knowing their telephony application can efficiently handle large user volumes, contributing to improved customer satisfaction and driving continued business growth.
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