Rational Performance Tester
Load & Performance Testing Tool
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What is Rational Performance Tester?
IBM Rational Performance Tester is a load and performance testing solution for teams concerned about the scalability of their Web-based applications.
Combining ease of use with deep analysis capabilities, Rational Performance Tester simplifies test creation, load generation, and data collection to help ensure that applications can scale to thousands of concurrent users.
Features and benefits…
1. Visual test editor delivering both high-level and detailed test views
2. Flexible modeling and emulation of diverse user populations
3. A low memory and processor footprint that enables large, multi-user tests with limited hardware resources
4. Real-time reporting for immediate performance problem identification
5. Automatic identification of, and support for, dynamic server responses
6. Automated test data variation
7. Collection and visualization of server resource data
8. Rendered HTML view of Web pages visited during test recording
9. Java code insertion for flexible test customization
10. Windows and Linux-based user interface and test execution agents
11. Includes a full-use copy of IBM Rational ClearCase LT
12. Load and performance testing of Siebel 7.7 applications
13. Leverage existing assets for load and performance testing
Planning Performance Test
What types of performance tests do I need to run to ensure the agreed-upon level of quality?
What performance benchmarks are we interested in and how will I measure whether they have been met?
Answering these questions are the basis of performance test planning. The first question directly addresses the quality of the product, while the second question addresses how to know when we have met the quality guidelines and how to report the results.
Designing Performance Test
1. Identify the user navigation paths to test
2. Decide how to implement these scenarios
3. Identify what setup is involved in testing
4. Define the acceptance criteria
Analyze system performance
The process of analyzing system performance has three milestones :
1. Test recording
2. Test scheduling
3. Test execution and results analysis
1. Test Recording
Use the Performance Tester recording mechanism to create the test.
Once the test has been recorded, use the Performance Tester Visual Test Editor to modify the test to ensure a realistic and accurate playback.
Record a test
Using Performance Tester’s recorder, we can create the tests without having to write any code.
In the background, Performance Tester will note all Web requests and responses and convert them into a test.
Enhance test with Response Verification
Performance Tester offers a variety of verification point mechanisms for this purpose, which can be performed against individual elements, or against the test as a whole. During playback these verification points will confirm proper execution of the test.
Enhance test with Datapooling
Datapooling is the process by which an individual piece of data captured during recording is replaced with a pool of data values during test execution
2. Test Scheduling
Scheduling helps to:
1. Group tests to emulate the actions of different users
2. Set the order in which tests run: sequentially, randomly, or in
a weighted order
3. Set the number of times each test runs
4. Run tests at a certain rate
5. Run one test, or a number of tests,
at a remote location
Define user profiles and user workloads
The Visual Schedule Editor provides a rich interface to define user profiles and user workloads. User profiles are set as relative percentages of the population. Real user workloads can be accurately emulated by including loops, delays, and decision structures.
Set schedule options
Once the schedule is assembled, various options exist to ensure realistic ramp up and think time emulation. A variety of settings are also available to configure the amount of data collected for reporting.
3. Test execution and results analysis
Once a test is running, the Performance Report opens and we can see live feedback about the running test.
A great feature of Performance Tester is its ability to display live reports. This comes in especially handy when a test fails for some reason. It is not necessary to wait for a test to complete to realize a problem has occurred.
With Performance Tester, once we spot a problem, we can cancel the test at any time, fix the problem and start over.
Analyze Test Health
Before analyzing response statistics, ensure a valid run.
Three bars that all read 100 in the overall report, ensures a healthy run
Analyze Summary Report
Summary report provides information such as run status, duration, active/completed/total users, max/min/average response times, total hits, and percent verification points passed.
Analyze System Performance
Page Throughput
This report gives an overview of general system response by providing two graphs, User Load and Page Hit Rate
Page Performance Report
This is the most important reports available. It gives the average response time for all pages throughout the test.
Response vs Time Summary
This report gives an overview of general system response by providing two graphs, Page Response vs Time and Page Element Response vs Time
Response vs Time Detail
This report shows how the average response time changed for the 10 slowest pages throughout the test
Server Health Summary
The Server Health Summary report gives an overall indication of how well the server is responding to the load
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