Web Stress Testing Tools

Web performance and reliability testing is a big concern for web developers and administrators. The lack of a proactive testing procedure leads to unexpected downtime or performance problems, which could be financially devastating to a company. Web-based companies require round-the-clock availability to satisfy the needs of global customers. This talk focuses mainly on server-side web testing, which includes examining network bandwidth, web server performance, ASP code performance, and COM object stability. This type of testing is accomplished using a load simulation tool to create realistic stress against the web server. Microsoft provides a free stress tool that can be downloaded from http://webtool.rte.microsoft.com. This tool makes the testing process as easy as possible, yet it is still a complex task that requires knowledge of IIS, ASP, and how to use the tool. Microsoft is making heavy investments in the next version of this tool, known as Application Center Test. This product will be available in Visual Studio 7.0 and Application Center 2000, version 2.0. To provide some background in this field, competitive products currently sell for $100,000 or more, while Application Center Test will sell for the price of Visual Studio Enterprise. In addition to it’s advanced features, the price makes the forthcoming product a very attractive solution for customers. The talk includes an in-depth discussion of both tools, web stress testing techniques, and performance metrics. The goal of the talk is to help ensure reliable web site deployment that meets business performance requirements, and determine the most cost-effective way of delaying system saturation.

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