performance testing of java engines using ibm – rational performance tester
DESCRIPTION
Performance Testing of Java Engines using IBM – Rational Performance TesterTRANSCRIPT
Performance Testing:
Author Name Title Signature Date
Ravinder Puranam
Performance Testing
of Solution Engines
using IBM – Rational
Performance Tester
Ravinder Puranam 18-May-2011
Introduction:
Performance testing:
The goal of performance testing is not to find bugs, but to eliminate bottlenecks and establish a
baseline for future regression testing. To conduct performance testing is to engage in a carefully
controlled process of measurement and analysis.
Performance testing as it applies to networks, websites and web-based applications involves load
testing. Other performance testing for software and hardware involves benchmarking i.e. to find
the best amount of load so that there is no loss from the system...Ideally; the software under test
is already stable enough so that this process can proceed smoothly.
E.g.: If the requirement document says that 500 users should be supported by the web
application, then the application should work properly without any performance issues when 500
users are continuously / intermittently accessing the application...Here testing for baseline of 500
users is called Performance testing...Any observations during performance testing should be
addressed and fixed accordingly with the project needs and priorities….In this document case the
Engines throughput is tested so as to understand the messages processed per second by the
Solution Engines which will give us an idea about messages to be sent to the Engines without
any loss.
Load Testing:
Performance testing is the superset of load testing. Load testing is part of the process of
performance testing and tuning. In that context, it meant constantly increasing the load on the
system via automated tools.
Load testing is employed to determine if your system (application) and servers (website) are
equipped to handle the network traffic anticipated at deployment, as well as increased network
traffic in the future.
E.g.: If the requirement document says that 500 users should be supported by the web
application, then testing the application for and above 500 users without any performance issues
is called as Load Testing...We will slowly increase the load based on average values sampling
methodology if the value to be tested is larger…hence will give a clear idea where the
application is deteriorating and till what level will it work fine...This can be done using Ramp-up
feature in the performance tool… What will Load testing my application or website find:
* Capacity of your current system
* Router/firewall problems
* A broken web server, application server or database server
* Load balancing problems
* Bandwidth problems
* Server capacity problems
* Performance (average page response time) problems
Volume testing
Testing the application for large volume of data is called volume testing. This is mainly
conducted to check the memory leaks and capacity of the server handling huge volume of data
and not the connections or the load.
Projects on which performance Testing was done:
1. Telecom – Tower Operating Center (TOC)
2. Wireless Energy Management Solution (WEMS)
Projects on which IBM – Rational performance Tester was used:
Telecom – Tower Operating Center (TOC)
About Telecom – Tower Operating Center (TOC):
Tower Operating Centre (TOC) is a project which monitors the alarms, Key Performance
Indicators of infrastructure and Energy Consumption like Commercial Energy, DG Energy, and
Batter Energy of shared cellular operators by installing Remote Transmission Unit (RTU) and
other related Hardware in the telecom towers which communicate to the Application Servers
using GSM/GPRS technologies.
TOC should be conceptually designed to be capable of handling up to 20,000 cell sites.
TOC is expected to cover or manage multiple circles across pan India.
TOC servers use ports like 5001, 5002, 13, 5003, 5006, 8161, 5009 and 80 etc
IBM Rational Performance Tester Download, Installation and usage for TOC Project:
Download Rational Performance Tester Trial version from the below link to understand about
the tool and its usage (Full version is available with our partner IBM):
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/r/rpt?S_TACT=105AGX19&S_CMP=dtaboun
ce
Enter Username: ID: [email protected] and Password: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
You can also have your own Username and Password by registering.
Once download is complete… Double click on the IBMIM_win32 file….It will ask for IBM
username and password…
In addition to this we also need NMON to monitor the CPU and Memory usages…
It will check and display installation as below:
Select only IBM Rational Performance Tester and click on Next >
The below screen will appear… Select create a new package group and Click on Next >
Once the below screen appears…Select only necessary options or default once, and Click on
Next >
Select Download help (option 2) so that the limited help is available to us…Click on Next> once
done…
Now it will collect all the information which was provided and gives us option to Install…Click
on install once the below screen appears…
Download and Installation process will take around 3-4 hours depending on the download
speed...
Once the installation is done…Eclipse starts the RPT application and asks for workspace
location i.e. where projects need to be saved…Show the workspace, select „Use this as the
default and do not ask again‟ and click on OK.
If it does not launch or need to open again after closing, open “IBM RPT – Full Eclipse” at the
below screen shot path:
The below screen will take some time to open for the first time….around 30 minutes if some
add-ons are to be installed and help documents, etc…
Navigate to “Start a New Performance Project”, give a name to your project….
Default page before recording will be as below and we need to click on the “New Test from
Recording” icon or by navigating to “File >> New >> Test Recording”
Show the path of TCP/IP tool…
Accept “Privacy Warning” and click on Finish to start Recording process…
This will open the TCP/IP tool….Enter the Server Details on which the Solution Engine is
running, connect to it and send the frame…The engine will reply to the sent message….
Send different types of frames if necessary as per the Recording needed and click on Disconnect
and close the TCP/IP tool.
The below screen will appear….click on Open Test to see or Close to close the cycle.
If clicked on Open Test…the below screen will appear in IBM-RPT so that we can know what
has happened with recording…
We can change the think time of the connections and for messages if we need the steps to be
done faster…..(50 ms is the minimum if we want to change it as it is suggested by RPT
consultant in earlier testing rounds done)
Now we are done with Recording of sending the messages…. different such recordings can be
done as per the data to be sent….there is also option of sending dynamic data using “Data Pool”
which was not used in the earlier performance cycle at IBM..
We need to do Performance schedules by using different saved Test recordings so as to use it as
per our need (Say 2 messages per sec, or more or any such) and create new schedules as per the
Test Scenarios we would have defined with respect to number of messages, time and type of
connections……
Performance Schedule:
Right click on the Project and select New >> Performance Schedule Or navigate to File >> New
>> Performance Schedule
Define the Initial number of users…ramp up stages and also user groups….
Click on Finish and then Yes to open the editor window.
Select User Group or Test will give different options when clicked on Add / Insert buttons
which can be used as per our need like Loop and Delay, etc
Different User Groups can be added based on the Test Scenarios so that some users can
connect from RPT client PCs as well…
For using RPT client PCs right click on the project and navigate to “Add Locations”, and also
test if the Locations that are given is successful (this option is available on Full version of RPT)
as in the below screen shot of licensed version….
Add different user groups and define the Performance Schedule as per the Test
Scenario….Use NMON to monitor the CPU and Memory usages during the same time….
Once ready with Performance schedule and NMON click on Run as in the below screen
Different stages will be present as in the below screen shots before the result is displayed..
Running stage
Complete Stage
Analyze the Report based on the results and Tabs present at the bottom….Double click on the
report name to maximize (vice versa to minimize) and use save as option (available in full
version) to save the report as HTML files..
