* Testing your Web apps performance
Last issue, I discussed a tool that you can use to spy on the behavior of your Web application’s interaction with clients. This issue, I have a tool that you can use as a client to beat up your Web applications. The tool is Webserver Stress Tool (WST) from Paessler (see editorial links below) whose utility PRTG Traffic Grapher was covered in this newsletter some time ago.
Last issue, I discussed a tool that you can use to spy on the behavior of your Web application’s interaction with clients. This issue, I have a tool that you can use as a client to beat up your Web applications.
The tool is Webserver Stress Tool (WST) from Paessler (see editorial links below) whose utility PRTG Traffic Grapher was covered in this newsletter some time ago.
WST is designed to simulate a large number of users accessing a Web site via HTTP/HTTPS. The actual number of virtual users will be limited by the power of the machine running the Webserver Stress Tool and the bandwidth of the network connection to the server.
WST simulates multiple users requesting a sequence of URLs including access to all available content such as HTML, frames, images, and so on.
Each simulated user uses a separate thread and maintains its own private session information. The target URLs can be parameterized for each user and the sequence of URLs can be varied.
Webserver Stress Tool supports a number of different types of test including performance, load, stress, ramp, and custom tests.
Performance tests query single URLs to identify and discover the components that limit performance. Load tests exercise entire Web sites at the expected load levels while stress tests simulate excessive loads that can identify maximum load limits. Ramp tests use an escalating number of users over a given timeframe in an attempt to determine failure points.
Custom tests allow you to tailor test scenarios to probe specific operation factors and scenarios that are specific to your Web site configuration.
WST provides a large number of analysis reports (HTML and Microsoft Word outputs are available) and performance logs.
WST is available in several versions that support simulations of 20, 100, and unlimited users as well as link checking, data merging, HTTPS support, and single or multiple computer installation. Pricing for the most basic version, the Standard Edition, is $50 while the most sophisticated version – the Enterprise Edition – is priced at $999.
