Saturday, July 27, 2013

Targeted Infrastructure Tests in Load Runner

Targeted Infrastructure Tests are Isolated tests of each layer and or component in an end to end application configuration. It includes communications infrastructure, Load Balancers, Web Servers, Application Servers, Crypto cards, Citrix Servers, Database… allowing for identification of any performance issues that would fundamentally limit the overall ability of a system to deliver at a given performance level.

Each test can be quite simple, For example, a test ensuring that 500 concurrent (idle) sessions can be maintained by Web Servers and related equipment, should be executed prior to a full 500 user end to end performance test, as a configuration file somewhere in the system may limit the number of users to less than 500. It is much easier to identify such a configuration issue in a Targeted Infrastructure Test than in a full end to end test.

The following diagram shows a simple conceptual decomposition of load to four different components in a typical web system.



Targeted infrastructure testing separately generates load on each component, and measures the response of each component under load. The following diagram shows four different tests that could be conducted to simulate the load represented in the above diagram.


Different infrastructure tests require different protocols. For example, VUGen supports a number of database protocols, such as DB2 CLI, Informix, MS SQL Server, Oracle and Sybase.

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