Apache JMeter - A Brief Introduction

A Really

ReallyReally

Basic Introduction into

Load & Stress Testingwith Apache JMeter

(c) 2010 agilitator.com

Performance, Load and Stress Testing Objectives

PerformanceFind bottlenecks, and establish a baseline

for the system operational loadLoad

Profile the system's behavior under the top load it was designed to work under

StressAttempt to break the system by

overwhelming its resources


All of the above (and more)“Apache JMeter is an open source 100% pure Java desktop application designed to load test functional behavior and measure performance. It was originally designed for testing Web Applications but has since expanded to other test functions.”

Source: http://jakarta.apache.org/jmeter/


Let’s get startedDownload JMeter from Apache Websitehttp://jakarta.apache.org/site/

downloads/downloads_jmeter.cgiFor *nix systems: .tgz archiveFor Windows: .zip archive

Extract archive into a local directoryNavigate to jakarta-jmeter-2.*.*\bin directoryLaunch JMeter GUI (make sure that Java is installed on your computer..)

jmeter.bat (Windows)jmeter.sh (*nix)


JMeter on Windows(c) 2010 agilitator.com

Apache JMeter GUI(c) 2010 agilitator.com

Add a Thread Group(c) 2010 agilitator.com

Meet your testers

• 100 simultaneous users• activated at the rate 10 per second• runs only once


Sampling – what?

Samplers describe your test target – what, where and how.HTTP Request access web site over – what else – HTTP !


An HTTP Request

There are quite a few options to be configured… For this basic introduction let’s keep things simple


Filling in the blanks

At the very least, you need to supply the following:

• URL for the website you are going to test• Port # - default is 80 (and you may leave it blank)• the page/directory to send request to (“/” stands for root)


Can I run my tests now?

As a matter of fact – you can!

The catch? You would not get any results back.

You need to add a

LISTENER

to display the information you'll be getting back


Adding a Listener

Summary Report is one of the most basic ones; it displays data in a table format


A Summary Report: what you see is what you get

Nothing to configure here, though you might want to supply a file name to where the results of the test might be saved.By default, the file will be written to \jakarta-jmeter-2.*.*\bin directory; use the browse button to specify different location

NB: if file does not exist already, JMeter will pop up an error message: “Could not open the file”. Ignore it, the file will be created in the specified directory after first run


Save your test plan

Before you run your test you have to save the configuration; it is saved into a file with JMX extension


Run the test, sit backand observe results!

After running your test several times, you’ll notice that historic results begin to accumulate in the table. To clear the slate use Run > Clear menu option (or press Ctrl-Shift-E)


Making (some) sense out of the results

• you’ve run total of 100 samples – HTTP requests to amazon.com• average response time – 920 milliseconds• min, max and standard deviation values are also provided• on average you’ve received 89698.6 bytes per page• no errors – page faults

amazon.com

google.com

testing google.com with same parameters yield 23 milliseconds average response time, with 10 times less data transfer


Just Scratching the Surface!

What this really, really, really basic introduction did not cover?Why, everything else!


Next steps

There are 20+ samplers, 15+ listeners, pre- and post-processors, assertions, timers, schedulers

as well as several configuration options for each.(And we haven’t even touched

the Workbench!... )Get more of JMeter on:

http://jakarta.apache.org/jmeter/

all rights reserved (c) 2010 agilitator.com

http://jakarta.apache.org/jmeter/

all rights reserved (c) 2010 agilitator.com

Your feedback is always welcome at:

[email protected]

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Apache JMeter - A Brief Introduction