1. IBM Software
Rational
Data Sheet
IBM Rational Performance
Tester
Assess application scalability before deployment
Highlights
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Create performance tests quickly without
writing or editing code
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Automate the identification and manage-
ment of dynamic server responses
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Identify the presence and cause of
system performance bottlenecks
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Collect and integrate server resource
monitoring data with application perfor-
mance measurements
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Quickly assess performance results
against application SLA targets
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Integrate with IBM® Rational® Quality
Manager to provide stakeholder visibility
across all software quality activities
After deploying applications, many development teams can experience
trouble with application availability, reliability and scalability for a variety
of reasons. A lack of load testing experience can complicate the creation
of performance tests. Actual user behavior might not be understood or
anticipated. The means for quickly identifying performance bottlenecks
might not be available.
IBM Rational Performance Tester is a tool for creating, running and
analyzing performance tests. It is designed to help teams validate the
scalability and reliability of their web and enterprise applications before
deployment. The software includes a test recorder, automated data
manipulation capabilities, flexible scheduling, reporting and a scalable
execution engine to help your team ensure that your applications are
prepared to handle large user loads.
Creating tests rapidly
Today’s software applications are complex, interconnected and often
depend on several different sources of data and even other apps. These
characteristics require a proactive approach to testing and strategic
methods that can mitigate the risks of system change and prove quality
through structure and control. Based on years of experience with testing
almost countless software builds and on the lessons learned in thousands
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of client engagements, IBM Rational test solutions are inte-
grated and automated to help you contain defects, test early and
continuously, and obtain an optimized return on testing effort.
Performance testing is part of these integrated solutions.
Rational Performance Tester software features capabilities that
are explicitly designed to help you create performance tests
quickly, regardless of your skill level. It is also designed to
encourage participation from different development domains.
To record a test, you simply use a browser or desktop client that
interacts with the targeted web-based application or ERP solu-
tion. With a floating toolbar, you can add annotations and
screen captures to document the workflow as you record. You
can also create modular components at the same time; Rational
Performance Tester can automatically create parameters so you
can link your test components in a variety of test scenarios. A
concise, tree-based editor presents the resulting test. Although
it masks the underlying code, it can provide details to the test
automation expert if needed. With an application-specific
viewer, you can view each visited page or screen offline to
review user interactions and the order of transactions.
Understanding application data
relationships
Data provided during one stage of a test is often passed along
for use in subsequent stages. For a successful performance test,
maintaining the integrity of these relationships is critical. For
reliable text execution and accurate load simulation, the auto-
matic data correlation engine in Rational Performance Tester
can identify and maintain application data relationships without
any mapping, test editing or other user interaction. You can also
create custom data correlation rules for applications with
unique data behavior. These rules can be saved and reused in
multiple projects to create resilient, large-scale multiuser tests.
The Center of Excellence and Value Prototyping at SAP successfully
used IBM Rational Performance Tester to simulate user load on a
SAP system and measure the system’s behavior. The solution
simplified data correlation during performance testing. As a result,
the test development time was reduced to a single day.
Creating data-driven tests
To ensure a realistic load and prevent server caching, each
virtual tester might be required to provide unique data during a
test. For example, to test the login functionality of a system,
each virtual tester should access the system with a unique user
ID and password. Rational Performance Tester fully supports
this method of data-driven testing. It automatically detects
variable data entered during test recording and marks these
locations for data substitution so you can map these items to
rows and columns in spreadsheet-like data pools. While the
test is running, the data pools are accessed to provide unique
data for each virtual tester. For applications that use binary or
encoded data, the test editor provides a variety of encodings for
quick visualization, along with built-in data transforms that
convert encoded data to ASCII, XML or other forms. Once the
data is readable in the test editor you can identify and create
parameters for data-driven test scenarios.
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Emulating real-world workloads
To obtain valuable performance results, modeling scenarios that
reflect how the application will really be used in production is
crucial. With Rational Performance Tester, you combine your
performance tests into a variety of realistic scenarios. You can
use the visual workload scheduler to define multi-user
workloads that vary over time. Or you can set schedules to
automatically increase load at specific intervals and synchronize
user events to simulate critical peak capacity activities. Rational
Performance Tester helps you quickly compare performance
metrics for these varying load stages and analyze multiple load
scenarios in a single test run.
Figure 2. A visual workload scheduler simplifies the creation of complex
multi-user load tests.
Figure 1. Data transforms simplify working with encoded data in your test.
Identifying the presence and cause of
performance bottlenecks
Rational Performance Tester is designed to help determine
the source of a performance problem, which is often time-
consuming and challenging. It can collect system resource
counters and overlay them on performance graphs to correlate
system bottlenecks with poor service or longer application
response times so you can identify the server component
responsible for the bottleneck. You can collect resource
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statistics from Windows, UNIX and Linux systems, Java Virtual
Machines, SNMP components and database servers, along with
web and application servers from IBM, Oracle, SAP and others.
Rational Performance Tester also integrates with IBM Rational
Application Performance Analyzer so you can determine the
root cause of a performance issue by mapping transaction
response times by physical application tier down to the
application source code. You can obtain the J2EE tier-to-tier
response time breakdown for IBM WebSphere® and Oracle
WebLogic application servers and use this information to help
resolve performance defects.
Figure 4. At the end of a test run, performance is automatically verified
against SLA requirements.
Figure 3. Rational Performance Tester includes a wide set of resource
monitors to help you identify performance bottlenecks.
Assessing actual performance versus
objectives faster
The objective of a performance test is to determine whether
your application meets the expected scalability and service
level requirements. With Rational Performance Tester, you
can define performance requirements that are automatically
analyzed at the end of a test. A report details the overall verdict,
the status of each performance requirement and a visual assess-
ment of the quality of your results. You can define performance
criteria based on requests, web pages, transactions or server
health resource counters using minimum, maximum, average,
percentile or standard deviation measurements.
As part of the testing process, you might also want to
understand how your code or system tuning is affecting the
scalability of your system. Rational Performance Tester can
compare results between different load stages in a test or
between different test runs. These comparisons provide
repeated assessments that can reveal whether you are making
progress or performance is being affected.
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Testing a broad range of environments
Rational Performance Tester incorporates a wide range of
protocols and technologies to help simplify and accelerate
your performance testing efforts. It includes support for web
applications and a variety of web authentication methods,
Flex (AMF3), Silverlight, Windows Communication
Foundation, TN3270, Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop
and major ERP platforms from SAP and Oracle.
Providing a scalable and flexible load
architecture
Rational Performance Tester is designed to make optimum
use of available processing and memory resources to create
large-scale load scenarios. Whether you have a variety of small
systems, a few large load drivers or a combination, you get the
flexibility to distribute and use your existing infrastructure for
your load testing.
Moving forward
As part of the software testing process, performance should
be analyzed for several characteristics. Applications can be
optimized for end-user response times or transaction through-
put, or you may need to ensure they can scale for peak loads.
Rational Performance Tester software is designed to reduce the
complexity of creating load tests that analyze these behaviors
while providing flexible workload scheduling and reporting
capabilities.
To learn more about how Rational Performance Tester can help
you validate your applications for real-world use, you can:
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Contact an IBM Rational specialist and learn how you can
conduct a test infrastructure assessment to understand your
testing requirements.
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Schedule a site survey or performance review with IBM.
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Read “Lessons from testing service-oriented architectures,”
an IBM white paper that shares eight important issues to
consider when testing.
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Download a free trial version of Rational Performance
Tester at ibm.com/software/awdtools/tester/performance
In addition, IBM Global Business Services® offers a combina-
tion of services, experience and Rational technology knowledge
to help you implement a Rational quality management system
designed to meet your specific requirements.
Why IBM?
IBM Rational test solutions are based on many years of
experience with software delivery. IBM’s goal is to help you
overcome the challenges of testing by providing quality man-
agement and testing solutions that can transform the way you
validate software. Quality management and testing activities
become a shared responsibility, not isolated and disconnected.
You can more easily manage your existing resources, overcome
schedule constraints and increase your team productivity.
