Load Tests using JMeter

Create Test Plan in JMeter

JMeter Documentation is available here

Discussion on Different Load Testing Tools

Brain Dumps are available here

Setup of EC2 Clients

1. Create a key-pair and copy it to your Linux Machine.
2. Rename it as rsa-gsg-keypair(optional).
3. Change Permissions using
   
   

   chmod 600 rsa-gsg-keypair

4. Launch an EC2 instance from Amazon Console
5. User guide for EC2 clients is available here
6. Get the Public DNS Name of the instance.
7. Now Log-in to the Instance using
   
   

   ssh -i id_rsa-gsg-keypair root@xxx.amazonaws.com

8. If required change Client's Time Zone to GMT using
   
   

   unlink /etc/localtime

   ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/GMT /etc/localtime

9. Download JMeter using
   
   
   

   wget http://mirrors.axint.net/apache/jakarta/jmeter/binaries/jakarta-jmeter-2.4.tgz

10. Install JMeter
    
    
    

    tar –xzf jakarta-jmeter-2.4.tgz

11. Set path to JMeter
    
    
    

    export PATH=$PATH:/path_to_jmeter_bin_directory

12. Download and install Java Runtime Environment (JRE)
13. Get Load test Plan (jmx file of JMeter onto this client)
14. Increase Open files limit using
    
    

    ulimit –n 8192

15. Run Load test using
    
    

    jmeter.sh -n -t M2LoadTests.jmx -l sample.jtl -j sample.log

16. Copying JMeter results (jtl files) on half hourly intervals make crontab entry as
    
    

    */30 * * * * /bin/cp /root/sample.jtl /root/Client-1-`/bin/date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M"`.jtl

JMeter as a Service

Information on JMeter as a Service is available here

Home Work (Benchmarking)

1. Host a simple "Hello world" HTML Page on the server on which you are going to perform Load tests
2. Try to perform load tests by hitting "Hello World" Page using 2 clients. (500 Threads from each client)
3. Increase number of threads by increasing no. of clients.
4. Keep on plotting results in a graph.
5. If it is a straight line then some thing is wrong with your setup like webserver setup (look at webserver conf file)
6. If it is some kind of Curve shooting up then wait for a U-Turn in the curve.
7. Get Numbers related to Latencies at this U-Turn and consider them as lowest Latencies with given setup.
8. Get Numbers related to Throughput at this U-Turn and consider them as highest Throughput one can achieve with given setup.
9. Also get average network latency for 100 pings using traceroute. This will be the minimum Network Latency.

Key parameters to be captured

1. Processor Utilization
   
   
   

   dstat with -cp switch

2. Memory utilization
   
   
   

   dstat with -m switch

3. Disk utilization
   
   
   

   dstat with -d switch

4. Network utilization
   
   
   

   dstat with -n switch

Points to Remember

1. Servers should not be put behind Load Balancer
2. Install dstat if required using
   
   
   

   emerge -av dstat if it is Gentoo

   
   
   
   

   yum if is RHEL

3. Monitor Server side System Resources using
   
   
   

   dstat -cndymlp -N total -D total -l --output SystemMon.csv