Data processing: measuring – calibrating – or testing – Measurement system – Performance or efficiency evaluation
Reexamination Certificate
2003-05-27
2004-08-10
Hoff, Marc S. (Department: 2857)
Data processing: measuring, calibrating, or testing
Measurement system
Performance or efficiency evaluation
C455S067700
Reexamination Certificate
active
06775644
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to computerized load testing and more particularly to a method and system for coordinating load testing of one or more sites under test over a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Networks, such as the Internet, Intranets, and Extranets are fundamentally changing the way people and businesses communicate and transact with one another. The incredible growth of this new communications medium is well documented and many new applications are being invented at a phenomenal pace. The Internet is now used to provide informational Web-sites (e.g., drkoop.com™), portals/meta-sites (e.g., Yahoo!™), on-line auctions (e.g., ebay.com™), and collaborative communities (e.g., geocities.com™), and others. Traditional “brick and mortar” businesses are moving on-line as well, providing such products and services as electronic commerce sites (e.g., amazon.com™), on-line stock trading (e.g., schwab.com™), and banking (e.g., citibank.com™). Ubiquitous corporate Intranets and Extranets utilizing Internet technologies provide similar applications and services to an internal or limited group of individuals and/or partners.
In a network environment, multiple users of client systems “load” a host system by concurrently accessing the host system and placing various computing and communication demands on the host system. The ability to accept multiple concurrent accesses and accurately respond to the communication demands in a timely manner provide two key host system performance parameters. The dramatic success and continued growth of the Internet and the applications being built upon it have resulted in a substantial and increasing number of users accessing Web application host sites and, thus, an increase in the loads experienced by such sites. Thus, one of the key challenges facing Internet,system hardware architects and application builders is how to design, build, and test a Web site to scale to meet ever growing user “load” while maintaining satisfactory host system performance parameters.
The scalability of a host system, such as a Web application host site, is generally defined by two parameters: the maximum load achievable while maintaining: (1) host system reliability; and (2) acceptable host system response times. It can be quite straightforward to build a simple e-Commerce Web site to market or sell a product, but it is quite another to do so in a scalable, high-performance, reliable fashion. Several highly-publicized problems have been recently documented at leading Web sites. In fact, the Newport Group, a Massachusetts-based research company, currently estimates that 52 percent of all Web applications fail to scale—meaning they don't perform acceptably under real-world usage increases.
Although host systems have been designed and implemented for many years, effectively, efficiently, and economically determining host system scalability has proved generally elusive. Several factors associated with Internet host systems contribute to making scalability an elusive, ever changing goal. First, the rapid growth trends and adoption of the Internet in general forces Internet host system builders to continually upgrade and reassess their ability to scale. A second factor stems from the challenging time-to-market pressures facing Web-centric companies, where predicting scalability can give way to the first and foremost goal of publicly activating the host systems. Third, new Web application technologies introduce increasing demands upon the technology infrastructure that companies have set up to provide their Internet presence. Broadband Internet connectivity, streaming audio/video, and voice-over-IP are examples of new Web application technologies which will make scaling Internet applications even more difficult. Fourth, technologies and requirements are advancing rapidly enough that human resources with adequate problem domain and solution knowledge for optimal. Internet implementation and performance are scarce commodities in the current information technology workforce.
Load testing of Web applications can empirically determine host system scalability. However, effective, efficient, and economical Internet host system load -testing has proved quite challenging. Traditionally, Web host application sites were load tested manually, which is neither a simple nor practical task. Using a manual approach to test an Internet host site under a load of 10,000 users would require hiring 10,000 people and giving them all a computer and network (intranet) or Internet access to the site to be tested. An additional drawback is that manual testing is non-repeatable in that the actions of large numbers of users are not predictable (repeatability being a hallmark of good testing practice).
In order to address some of the drawbacks of manual load testing, several contemporary vendors have developed load test applications that can simulate hundreds and even thousands of users accessing an Internet application. These tools commonly allow user behavior to be defined using some type of programmable script.
Many, if not all, load test tools are inadequate to address the needs of Internet site load testing. For instance, typical load testing tools are not optimized to test via the Internet and thus do not take in consideration the effects of the public nature of the Internet in performance. In addition, typical load test tools are limited (or at least untested) in their ability to truly simulate beyond a few thousand simultaneous users. Another drawback is that typical load testing tools can only effectively test one, independent target system at a time within an organization or a group of organizations. Therefore, typical conventional tools are unable to test multiple sites simultaneously.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method of load testing at least one site under test (SUT) in accordance with at least one load test request. The load test request provides information for load testing the at least one SUT. The load test request is reviewed, and a load test corresponding to the load test request is generated. The load test is allocated among a plurality of load cells. Load test data is sent, in accordance with the load test, from the plurality of load cells to the at least one SUT. Response data from the SUT is received by the load cells. At least one embodiment of the method further includes generating a load test report based on the response data. Another embodiment of the method provides for receiving and reviewing a plurality of load test requests pertaining to a SUT. A further embodiment of the method provides for receiving and reviewing a plurality of load test requests for each of a plurality of SUTs.
In another embodiment, the present invention includes a computer-readable medium having a computer program accessible therefrom, the computer program including instructions for performing the method of load testing the site(s) under test in accordance with the load test request(s). Note: [object][s] means at least one [object]. The computer-readable medium includes any of the following: a magnetic storage medium, including disk and tape storage medium; an optical storage medium, including compact disk memory and a digital video disk storage medium; a nonvolatile memory storage memory; a volatile storage medium; and data transmission medium including packets of electronic data and electromagnetic waves modulated in accordance with the instructions.
Allocating the load test among the plurality of load cells includes, in at least one embodiment, determining whether a sufficient number of load cells are available to collectively conduct the load test request and, if so, distributing the load test among the available load cells until the load test is fully allocated. In at least one embodiment, the load cells to which the load test is allocated are geographically remote from the SUT.
In addition to the method discussed above, another embodiment
Eureka Software Solutions, Inc.
Hoff Marc S.
Koestner Bertani LLP
Raymond Edward
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