All tests in VPT start with a test script. To create a test script, you must first have JMeter installed on your system (JMeter download page). The steps below will explain how to create a basic scenario to test a web API endpoint.
Open JMeter and click File > New from the top menu to create a new test plan.
Right click on the “Test Plan” element of the tree in the left pane and select Add > Threads (Users) > Thread Group to add a new thread group to your test plan.
This creates a group of users that will execute all actions contained within the thread group.
Right click on the “Thread Group” element you just added to the tree and select Add > Sampler > HTTP Request to add a new HTTP Request sampler to your test plan.
Click on the “HTTP Request” element to show the options in the right pane and enter the information for the API you want to test. This includes the protocol, hostname or IP, port number, HTTP method, and request path.
Click File > Save from the top menu to save the test plan as a JMeter test script with a .JMX extension.
Now this test can be run in JMeter as well as be uploaded to VPT to run at scale. Although this is a very basic scenario, VPT has the capacity to run even some of the most complex JMeter scripts. Later articles will guide you through uploading and running scripts in VPT.
For a list of JMeter plugins supported by VPT, see Supported JMeter Plugins.