This question has been asked many times and the simple answer is this: Performance Center is simply Loadrunner wrapped up in a web front end. I personally think that the web front end looks extremely dated and clumsy – its in need of an update, but dispiste being superficial it does do what is required. By wrapping up the LoadRunner components into a web front end it means the service can almost be treated as a Software As A Service. Key advantages of this approach:
- Anyone within a organisation can gain access to the software – particularly useful if you are a global and distributed entity.
- Reduces the license costs of implementing Loadrunner within large organisations
- Allows global Centers of Excellence to standardise approaches and consolidate hardware
- The HP Performance Center software can be centrally administrated
The main advantage of HP Performance Center over LR mainly boils down to cost – installing Loadrunner on X performance testers PC’s will be a lot more expensive than sharing it as a resource between them through Performance Center.
See also Overview of HP Performance Center
