IBM RATIONAL PERFORMANCE TESTER

By:Akshit PeerDSE/2K9/005B. Tech. (Software Engineering)

Department of Computer EngineeringDelhi Technological University, Delhi

Contents

•Introduction•Overview•Performance Test Creation Process•Features and Benefits•Release History•Criticisms•References

Introduction

•A tool from Rational Software division of IBM

•Used for automated performance testing of web and server based applications

•Allows users to create tests that mimic user transactions between an application client and server

•Primarily used by Software Quality Assurance teams to perform automated software performance testing

Overview• A test automation tool used to measure web

and server based application scalability• Allows users to create tests that mimic user

transactions between application client and server

• During test execution, transactions are replicated in parallel to simulate a large transaction load on the server

• Server response time measurements collected to identify the presence and cause of any potential application bottlenecks

Performance Test Creation Process•Test Creation

▫Tests created using the IBM Rational Performance Tester recording mechanism

▫Recorder captures all transactions between application client (such as a web browser) and an application server

▫Resulting test displayed as a tree view, where each branch of the tree represents a browser or client request and response

Performance Test Creation Process•Test Editing

▫Rational Performance Tester tests are not represented as code, but as tree view

▫To edit the test, user selects menu options which allow for insertion of loops, "if-then" type decision structures and response verification

▫If custom coding solution is required, users can insert Java code modules to perform complex computations

Performance Test Creation Process• Test Scheduling

▫ Rational Performance Tester can execute a single test or it can create a suite of tests for playback

▫ When creating a suite of tests, users drag and drop tests onto a schedule to simulate a given sequence of events

▫ Tests can be grouped by user profile, to represent the activities of different types of users on a system

▫ Volume of transactions can be set to increase at defined intervals to increase load during a test, in an effort to identify system bottlenecks

Performance Test Creation Process• Test Reporting▫ Rational Performance Tester offers variety of reports

to identify the presence and cause of system performance bottlenecks.

▫ Reports measure accuracy of system response which ensure that the system did not error out or crash during a test

▫ Reports measure: System performance metrics - disk, network and

CPU utilization to identify the presence of hardware bottlenecks

Software related bottlenecks - load, throughput and response times

Features and Benefits• Scriptless Testing• Find and diagnose the cause of performance

problems• Integrated Resource Monitoring• Real-time reporting for immediate performance

problem identification• Run large multi-user tests with limited hardware• Automatic identification of and correlation of

dynamic server responses• Automated test data variation• Accurate user profile workloads

Release History• Rational Performance Tester 6.1 Released May, 2005

▫ Initial release▫ First release of the Eclipse based IBM Rational

Performance Tester▫ IBM Rational previously offered Rational Performance

Tester v6.0▫ Previous generation performance testing tool, unrelated to

the current IBM Rational Performance Tester

• v7.0 Released February, 2007• v8.0 Released October, 2008• v8.1 Released July, 2009• v8.2 Released October, 2010

Criticisms• Can only find the performance bottlenecks that

they are programmed to find• If a system performance bottleneck exists in an

untested area of the system, Rational Performance Tester will not find the issue

• System can go live without anyone's knowledge of the defect

• Once the problem surfaces in a deployed system, organizations experience related challenges of discovering and resolving a performance issue in production

References• IBM-IBM Rational Performance Tester-Rational Performan

ce Tester-Software▫ http://www-01.ibm.com/software/awdtools/tester/performance/

• IBM Rational Performance Tester▫ http://www-01.ibm.com/software/awdtools/tester/performance/features

/• Wikipedia

▫ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Rational_Performance_Tester