 | Level: Intermediate Foong Lee, IT Specialist, IBM Japan, Software Group
Allan Tham, IT Specialist, IBM Japan, Software Group
21 Apr 2009
Updated 21 Apr 2009 IBM®Rational® Performance Tester provides a variety of performance
analysis reports that enhance your visual experience of test results and enable you to
identify performance bottlenecks easily. In order for you to get the most out of your test
reporting, you can customize, export, and compare these reports.
Before you start
Learn what to expect from this tutorial and how to get the most out of it.
About this series
IBM® Rational® Performance Tester is a performance testing tool that emulates
various user loads to mimic the real-life loads. With proper planning coupled with
realistic simulation, this tool uses the current loads to estimate future loads. For
example, a customer's application may potentially serve a total of 5000 users. With
Rational Performance Tester, you can easily emulate the user loads at 1000, 2000, 3000,
4000, 5000 and beyond to project the right user growth, so that you can also project
server sizing, such as optimal CPU and memory requirements, more accurately. You can
identify and diagnose performance bottlenecks, whether such problems occur in the network,
database, the application server, or even the user application. The root cause analysis
capability further analyzes application tiers, which may include page components such as
Enterprise Java™Beans (EJBs), servlets, a Java™ Database Connector
(JDBC) API, Web services, and so forth. This functionality enables you to pinpoint the
performance culprit easily and efficiently by analyzing the online or extracted reports.
Rational Performance Tester also helps you create, run, and analyze performance tests and
validate the scalability and reliability of your Web-based applications before deployment.
The default supported protocols, such as HTTP and HTTPS, allow You to run the load tests
on Web applications. Several extensions are also available:
- IBM® Rational® Performance Tester Extension for Citrix Presentation Server
- IBM® Rational® Performance Tester Extension for SOA Quality
- IBM® Rational® Performance Tester Extension for Siebel Test Automation
- IBM® Rational® Performance Tester Extension for SAP Solutions
Here's a quick summary of this series of five articles:
- Part 1 gives you an overview of IBM Rational Performance Tester Version 7.0.
- Part 2 walks you through the basics of using Rational Performance Tester by creating,
running, and evaluating a simple test.
- Part 3 covers testing as user loads grow (see the next section for more).
- Part 4 is all about reports, because a load test is only as good as the
reports of the results.
- Part 5 (this part) shows you additional reports, as well as how you can customize and export the
reports to suit your needs.
The goal of this series is to help you understand the features, topological
considerations, and constraints so that you can create and test Web applications and
analyze the performance reports. With this knowledge and the ease of use of Rational
Performance Tester, load testing a Web application will no longer be a burdensome chore,
and you can include it for each iteration of your software.
About this tutorial
This tutorial assumes that you have completed Parts 1-4 of this series. This tutorial
explores the various other performance analysis reports provided by Rational Performance
Tester. It also highlights some features related to using these analysis reports, such as
navigation and customization of the reports.
Prerequisites
Be sure to work through Parts 1 through 4 before you start this article, because you use the same sample applications. It's important that you have learned the basics of using Rational Performance Tester for load testing from the other articles in this series, so that you can proceed to the more complex activities in this one.
Note:
The workbench machine should be used only for workbench activity, such as creating tests and distributing the performance load to run on remote machines.
Please ensure that your system meets these prerequisites:
Table 1. Required resources
| Resource | Workbench machine | Remote machines |
|---|
| Hardware | Minimum 1GB, more if running test | Minimum 1GB |
|---|
| Software | IBM Rational Performance Tester (includes IBM Rational Agent Controller)
IBM Rational License Server | IBM Rational License Server
IBM Rational Agent Controller |
|---|
| Licenses | Activation kit for Rational Performance Tester to enable permanent use Floating license key imported into Rational License Server
Note: The floating license key must be for more than or same number of virtual users that will test in Rational Performance Tester*
| Pointing to floating license key served by workbench machine |
|---|
| Network | Able to ping all remote machines | Able to ping workbench machine |
|---|
*The trial version of Rational Performance Tester allows only five concurrent tests of users. To test more than that, you need to purchase the license. The IBM® Rational® Software Delivery Platform V7.0 - Desktop Product Activation site has information about how to get licenses and the activation process. You can download both IBM® Rational® Agent Controller and IBM® Rational® License Server from the IBM Software Access Catalog. See Resources for links.
IBM Rational License Server manages floating and named-user license keys for Rational products. The floating license key is required if you want to run more than five virtual user tests. In this example, the license key is imported into the license server, which resides on the workbench machine and serves the key to all remote machines. The remote machines point to the license server.
The IBM Rational Agent Controller needs to be installed on all remote machines, to enable distributed testing. The workbench machine would have the Rational Agent Controller installed when installing Rational Performance Tester.
Figure 1 shows the setup that you need for the exercises in this article.
Figure 1. Topology of the setup for remote testing
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