LoadRunner works by making virtual users who take the place of real users operating client software, such as sending requests using the HTTP protocol to IIS or Apache web servers. Requests from a lot of virtual user clients are created by Load Generators in order to create a load on several servers under test

These load generator agents are started and stopped by Mercury's Controller program. The Controller controls load test runs based on Scenarios invoking compiled Scripts and associated Run-time Settings.

Scripts are crafted using Mercury's "Virtual user script Generator" (named "V U Gen"), It makes C-language script code to be executed by virtual users by capturing network traffic between Internet application clients and servers.

With Java clients, VuGen captures calls by hooking within the client JVM. During runs, the status of every machine is monitored by the Controller.

At the end of every run, the Controller combines its monitoring logs with logs obtained from load generators, and makes them available to the "Analysis" program, which can then create run result reports and graphs for Microsoft Word, Crystal Reports, or an HTML webpage browser.