Tool Mentor: Monitoring a Performance Test Schedule
Purpose
This tool mentor describes how to monitor a schedule for performance testing using Rational LoadTest.
Related Rational Unified Process activities:
Also see the following pages for additional related information:
Overview
While a schedule is running, you may want to monitor its progress. Monitoring
a schedule lets you not only confirm that the schedule is progressing
successfully, but also lets you discover potential problems early in the run so
you can intervene if necessary. You can suspend and restart virtual users,
change the values of shared variables, and release users waiting on
synchronization points.
LoadTest's monitoring tools provide you with up-to-date information that is
dynamically updated as the schedule runs. This information includes:
- The number of commands that have executed successfully and the number of commands that have failed.
- The general state of the users: whether they are initializing, connecting to a database, exiting the schedule, or performing other tasks.
- The number of users that have terminated abnormally.
When you run a schedule, LoadTest displays the monitoring information in a
Progress bar and in views. The Progress bar gives you a quick summary of the
state of the run and cannot be changed. You can change the views however, to
provide summary information or detailed information about each user.
Using the Progress bar, you can quickly assess how successfully the schedule is
running. It provides the following information:
- Users ù The total number of users in the run.
- Active ù The number of users that are neither suspended or terminated.
- Suspended ù The number of virtual users in a paused state.
- Normal Terminated ù The number of users that completed their tasks successfully.
- Abnormal Terminated ù The number of users that terminated without completing all of their assigned tasks.
- Time in Run ù The time the schedule has been running, expressed in hours:minutes:seconds.
- %Done ù The approximate percentage of the schedule that has completed.
Aside from looking at the Progress bar, there are many mechanisms for monitoring the schedule. The following are steps you can take to monitor the schedule while it is running:
1. Display a schedule view. 
The schedule view is very similar to the actual schedule that you have
designed. It displays general information about the status of the users. Columns
show you which iteration is being executed and what percentage of the users in a
group are currently in a script or selector.
You can choose from two schedule views ù Overall and User. The Overall view
displays general information about the status of the schedule. This is the
default view. The User view displays the exact schedule progress of a particular
user.
The procedure for displaying a
schedule view is found in Chapter 8 of the Using Rational LoadTest
manual, which can be found on the documentation CD.
2. Display a histogram.
A histogram view groups the users into various states, such as exiting and initializing. Use a histogram to display a bar graph of how many users are in each state. LoadTest offers the following histogram views:
- Standard ù Data is grouped in a general way. Use this view if you want a general overview of the user states.
- GUI ù Data is grouped appropriately for tests that run GUI scripts.
- SQL ù Data is grouped appropriately for tests that access SQL databases.
- HTTP ù Data is grouped appropriately for tests that access Web servers.
- IIOP ù Data is grouped appropriately for tests that access IIOP servers.
The procedure for displaying a
histogram view is found in Chapter 8 of the Using Rational LoadTest
manual, which can be found on the documentation CD.
3. Display a user view.
A user view displays the status and details of GUI and virtual user operations. LoadTest offers the following user views:
- Full ù Contains complete information about all users.
- Compact ù Contains summary information about all users. This is the most efficient user view to use when you are running Agent computers.
- Results ù Contains information about the success and failure rate of each VU emulation command.
- Source ù Displays the line number and the name of the source file being executed.
- Message ù Similar to the Compact user view, but also displays the first 20 letters of text from the VU display library routine.
The procedure for displaying a
user view is found in Chapter 8 of the Using Rational LoadTest manual,
which can be found on the documentation CD.
4. Display other monitoring views.
The following tasks can also be performed to monitor a schedule:
- Displaying the Shared Variables view
- Displaying the Script view
- Displaying the Sync Points view
- Displaying the Computer view
- Displaying the Group views
- Displaying the Transactor view
- Displaying other monitoring views
Displaying the Shared Variables view
The Shared Variables view lets you inspect the values of any shared variables
that you have set in your schedule or script. It shows the name of each
variable, the value of the variable, and the number of users waiting for the
shared variable to reach a certain value. You can also change shared variable
values during the schedule run if you are using this view.
Displaying the Script view
The Script view displays the line of code that a user is running. This is useful
if you want to watch the progress of a user through a script. It shows two tabs,
Errors and Log, as well as the script.
Displaying the Sync Points view
The Sync Points view displays information about synchronization points that you
have set in the schedule or that you have included in the script. This view also
lets you manually release users that are waiting on a synchronization point.
Displaying the Computer view
Use this view to check the computer resources used during a schedule run, as
well as the status of the Master and Agent computers at the beginning and end of
a run. For every Master or Agent computer in the run, LoadTest displays the
following information: name, computer type, state, time, users, CPU system, CPU
user, CPU queue length, memory pages input/sec, memory pages output/sec, memory
% used, disk transfers/sec, % disk used, delay, and service time. In this view
you can graph the resources that your computer uses during a schedule run.
Displaying the Group views
The group view show the status of all user groups that you defined in the
schedule. Both Group views show the same information, but the Schedule view
shows the information by user group, and the Computer view shows the information
by computer. The Group views contain the following information: type, total,
active, suspended, abnormal, and normal.
Displaying the Transactor view
The Transactor view shows the status of the transactors that you have inserted
into the schedule. It contains the following information about the transactors:
name, type, state, users, start time, active time, transactions, target rate,
actual rate, and %Late.
Displaying other monitoring views
Other ways you can monitor the schedule as it runs include: filtering and
sorting views; changing the value of a shared variable; debugging a VU script;
changing monitor defaults; and controlling the schedule during the run by
suspending or stopping it.
All the procedures listed above for
monitoring a schedule are found in Chapter 8 of the Using Rational LoadTest
manual, which can be found on the documentation CD.
