Rational Performance Tester overview

IBM® Rational® Performance Tester is a scripting-free environment for automating load and scalability testing of web, ERP, and server-based software applications. Rational Performance Tester provides rich and customizable reporting to help you identify the presence and cause of system bottlenecks.
Rational Performance Tester captures the network traffic that is rendered when the application under test interacts with a server. This network traffic is then emulated on multiple virtual users while playing back the test. With Rational Performance Tester, you can test applications that use the following protocols or domains:
  • HTTP
  • SAP (GUI)
  • Citrix
  • Socket
  • TN3270
  • Service (SOA)

You can record a certain parts of the application that you want to test. Rational Performance Tester generates a test out the recording. You can then edit the tests by adding dynamic data and verification points. Run the test individually and inspect the results to make sure that the test is doing what you expect. You can then emulate a workload by adding user groups in the schedule editor. Each user group contains multiple tests with appropriate workload. For example, on a typical retail web site, 80% of the user traffic are browsers and 20% are buyers. Schedules are typically run on a remote server that has high-end configuration. Rational Performance Tester Agent is installed on that server and connected with the workbench.

You can use the Agent Controller feature of Rational Performance Tester Agent to debug the performance bottlenecks at the code level. The data collection infrastructure collects performance profiling data for distributed applications and sends the data to the workbench computer, where you can view and analyze the collected data. Data collection is supported on IBM WebSphere® Application Server and Oracle WebLogic Application Server. You can also import data from IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager to collect response time breakdown.

With Rational Performance Tester, you can monitor the computer resources such as processor or memory usage when running a schedule.

Rational Performance Tester provides a variety of reports to analyze the performance bottlenecks in the application under test. There are multiple reports for each protocol or domain.

You can integrate Rational Performance Tester with IBM Rational Quality Manager and IBM Rational Team Concert™.

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