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<?xml version="1.0"?> | |
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<!DOCTYPE document[ | |
<!ENTITY sect-num '17'> | |
]> | |
<document prev="best-practices.html" next="component_reference.html" id="$Id: boss.xml 1175606 2011-09-25 22:28:22Z sebb $"> | |
<properties> | |
<author email="mramshaw@alumni.concordia.ca">Martin Ramshaw</author> | |
<title>User's Manual: My boss wants me to...</title> | |
</properties> | |
<body> | |
<section name="§-num;. Help! My boss wants me to load test our web app!" anchor="boss"> | |
<p>This is a fairly open-ended proposition. There are a number of questions to | |
be asked first, and additionally a number of resources that will be needed. You | |
will need some hardware to run the benchmarks/load-tests from. A number of | |
tools will prove useful. There are a number of products to consider. And finally, | |
why is Java a good choice to implement a load-testing/Benchmarking product. | |
</p> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.1 Questions to ask" anchor="questions"> | |
<p>What is our anticipated average number of users (normal load) ? | |
</p> | |
<p>What is our anticipated peak number of users ? | |
</p> | |
<p>When is a good time to load-test our application (i.e. off-hours or week-ends), | |
bearing in mind that this may very well crash one or more of our servers ? | |
</p> | |
<p>Does our application have state ? If so, how does our application manage it | |
(cookies, session-rewriting, or some other method) ? | |
</p> | |
<p>What is the testing intended to achieve?</p> | |
</subsection> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.2 Resources" anchor="resources"> | |
<p>The following resources will prove very helpful. Bear in mind that if you | |
cannot locate these resources, <b>you</b> will become these resources. As you | |
already have your work cut out for you, it is worth knowing who the following | |
people are, so that you can ask them for help if you need it. | |
</p> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.2.1 Network" anchor="network"> | |
<p>Who knows our network topology ? If you run into any firewall or | |
proxy issues, this will become very important. As well, a private | |
testing network (which will therefore have very low network latency) | |
would be a very nice thing. Knowing who can set one up for you | |
(if you feel that this is necessary) will be very useful. If the | |
application doesn't scale as expected, who can add additional | |
hardware ? | |
</p> | |
</subsection> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.2.2 Application" anchor="application"> | |
<p>Who knows how our application functions ? The normal sequence is | |
<ul> | |
<li>test (low-volume - can we benchmark our application?)</li> | |
<li>benchmark (the average number of users)</li> | |
<li>load-test (the maximum number of users)</li> | |
<li>test destructively (what is our hard limit?)</li> | |
</ul> | |
The <b>test</b> process may progress from black-box testing to | |
white-box testing (the difference is that the first requires | |
no knowledge of the application [it is treated as a "black box"] | |
while the second requires some knowledge of the application). | |
It is not uncommon to discover problems with the application | |
during this process, so be prepared to defend your work. | |
</p> | |
</subsection> | |
</subsection> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.3 What platform should I use to run the benchmarks/load-tests ?" anchor="platform"> | |
<p>This should be a widely-used piece of hardware, with a standard | |
(i.e. vanilla) software installation. Remember, if you publish your results, | |
the first thing your clients will do is hire a graduate student to verify them. | |
You might as well make it as easy for this person as you possibly can. | |
</p> | |
<p>For Windows, Windows XP Professional should be a minimum (the others | |
do not multi-thread past 50-60 connections, and you probably anticipate | |
more users than that). | |
</p> | |
<p>Good free platforms include the linuxes, the BSDs, and Solaris Intel. If | |
you have a little more money, there are commercial linuxes. | |
This may be worth it if you need the support. | |
</p> | |
<p> | |
For non-Windows platforms, investigate "ulimit -n unlimited" with a view to | |
including it in your user account startup scripts (.bashrc or .cshrc scripts | |
for the testing account). | |
</p> | |
<p>As you progress to larger-scale benchmarks/load-tests, this platform | |
will become the limiting factor. So it's worth using the best hardware and | |
software that you have available. Remember to include the hardware/software | |
configuration in your published benchmarks. | |
</p> | |
<p>Don't forget JMeter batch mode. This can be useful if you have a powerful server | |
that supports Java but perhaps does not have a fast graphics implementation, | |
or where you need to login remotely. | |
Batch (non-GUI) mode can reduce the network traffic compared with using a remote display or client-server mode. | |
The batch log file can then be loaded into JMeter on a workstation for analysis, or you can | |
use CSV output and import the data into a spreadsheet.</p> | |
</subsection> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.4 Tools" anchor="tools"> | |
<p>The following tools will all prove useful. It is definitely worthwhile to | |
become familiar with them. This should include trying them out, and reading the | |
appropriate documentation (man-pages, info-files, application --help messages, | |
and any supplied documentation). | |
</p> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.4.1 ping" anchor="ping"> | |
<p> | |
This can be used to establish whether or not you can reach your | |
target site. Options can be specified so that 'ping' provides the | |
same type of route reporting as 'traceroute'. | |
</p> | |
</subsection> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.4.2 nslookup/dig" anchor="dig"> | |
<p> | |
While the <u>user</u> will normally use a human-readable internet | |
address, <u>you</u> may wish to avoid the overhead of DNS lookups when | |
performing benchmarking/load-testing. These can be used to determine | |
the unique address (dotted quad) of your target site. | |
</p> | |
</subsection> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.4.3 traceroute" anchor="traceroute"> | |
<p> | |
If you cannot "ping" your target site, this may be used to determine | |
the problem (possibly a firewall or a proxy). It can also be used | |
to estimate the overall network latency (running locally should give | |
the lowest possible network latency - remember that your users will | |
be running over a possibly busy internet). Generally, the fewer hops | |
the better. | |
</p> | |
</subsection> | |
</subsection> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.5 What other products are there ?" anchor="products"> | |
<p>There are a number of commercial products, which generally have fairly | |
hefty pricetags. If you can justify it, these are probably the way to go. | |
If, however, these products do not do exactly what you want, or you are on a | |
limited budget, the following are worth a look. In fact, you should probably | |
start by trying the Apache <b>ab</b> tool, as it may very well do the job | |
if your requirements are not particularly complicated. | |
</p> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.5.1 Apache 'ab' tool" anchor="ab"> | |
<p> | |
You should definitely start with this one. It handles HTTP 'get' requests | |
very well, and can be made to handle HTTP 'post' requests with a little | |
effort. Written in 'C', it performs very well, and offers good (if basic) | |
performance reporting. | |
</p> | |
</subsection> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.5.2 HttpUnit" anchor="httpunit"> | |
<p> | |
This is worth a look. It is a library (and therefore of more interest to | |
developers) that can be used to perform HTTP tests/benchmarks. It is | |
intended to be used instead of a web browser (therefore no GUI) in | |
conjunction with <b>JUnit</b>. | |
</p> | |
</subsection> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.5.3 Microsoft WAS" anchor="WAS"> | |
<p> | |
This is definitely worth a look. It has an excellent user interface | |
but it may not do exactly what you want. If this is the case, be aware | |
that the functionality of this product is not likely to change. | |
</p> | |
</subsection> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.5.4 JMeter" anchor="JMeter"> | |
<p> | |
If you have non-standard requirements, then this solution offers an | |
open-source community to provide them (of course, if you are reading | |
<u>this</u>, you are probably already committed to this one). This | |
product is free to evolve along with your requirements. | |
</p> | |
</subsection> | |
</subsection> | |
<subsection name="§-num;.6 Why Java ?" anchor="java"> | |
<p>Why not Perl or C ? | |
</p> | |
<p>Well, Perl might be a very good choice except that the Benchmark package | |
seems to give fairly fuzzy results. Also, simulating multiple users with | |
Perl is a tricky proposition (multiple connections can be simulated by forking | |
many processes from a shell script, but these will not be threads, they will | |
be processes). However, the Perl community is very large. If you find that | |
someone has already written something that seems useful, this could be a very | |
good solution. | |
</p> | |
<p>C, of course, is a very good choice (check out the Apache <b>ab</b> tool). | |
But be prepared to write all of the custom networking, threading, and state | |
management code that you will need to benchmark your application. | |
</p> | |
<p>Java gives you (for free) the custom networking, threading, and state | |
management code that you will need to benchmark your application. Java is | |
aware of HTTP, FTP, and HTTPS - as well as RMI, IIOP, and JDBC (not to mention | |
cookies, URL-encoding, and URL-rewriting). In addition Java gives you automatic | |
garbage-collection, and byte-code level security. | |
</p> | |
<p>And once Microsoft moves to a CLR (common language run-time) a Windows Java | |
solution will not be any slower than any other type of solution on the Windows | |
platform. | |
</p> | |
</subsection> | |
</section> | |
</body> | |
</document> |