Dynameasure software by Bluecurve lets you test and troubleshoot performance
in a client/ server environment. Although this simple statement of purpose
implies that Dynameasure is a modest tool for limited applications, Dynameasure
is highly flexible for a variety of applications such as server benchmarking,
capacity planning, stress testing, and network analysis.
Dynameasure is different from most other performance-testing software
because it uses actual client systems to simulate the client load. When you
deploy Dynameasure, "motors" running in a client system generate the
workload. You fire up the motors from a central control point, and they ride
through your network like a band of Hell's Angels looking for trouble. Each
physical client system can run from one to 20 motors, so you can, for example,
use only 100 client systems to simulate the load of 2000 clients. The motors can
coexist with other client-side applications, so you can test while end users are
working--this capability can be pretty handy during capacity planning if you
want to consider your existing client workload.
Bluecurve specifically geared the current version of Dynameasure toward
testing Microsoft's SQL Server environment. The client motors connect to the SQL
server via Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) links and use a mix of transactions
to interact with a test database. Dynameasure then stores the transaction
results in a separate results database. Bluecurve recommends one SQL server to
sponsor the test database and a separate one to handle the test results. That
way, the I/O load of updating the result database does not affect the I/O load
of the test database. You have control over the size of the database and the
transaction mix (e.g., the frequency of read, write, and mixed read/write
operations). In fact, the amount of control you have over the test environment
and transaction behavior is one of the most impressive aspects of Dynameasure.
Future versions of Dynameasure will support other databases such as Oracle
and Sybase, file services, messaging engines such as Exchange, and Web servers.
Bluecurve is clearly trying to position Dynameasure as the single tool you need
to handle enterprise-level benchmarking and performance testing for all your
client/ server applications.
How does Dynameasure measure up as an analytical tool? To answer this
question, Windows NT Magazine brought Dynameasure into the Lab.
In this article, I'll look at the installation, configuration, and
operational aspects of Dynameasure. Subsequent articles will show you the
results of tests that use Dynameasure to assess the scaleability of SQL Server
on a variety of server platforms.
The Dynameasure Operating Environment
To install Dynameasure, you need to start with at least one operational SQL
Server system (again, Bluecurve recommends two), one client system that you
designate as the test manager (the control point), and at least one client
system to run motors (if necessary, you can concurrently use the test manager
system as a client system and run motors on it). The more client systems the
merrier, but starting small and progressing upward is probably good.
The SQL server can be Intel-based or a Digital Alpha and can run SQL Server
6.0 or 6.5 under Windows NT Server 3.51 or 4.0. The client systems must be
Intel-based and can run Windows 95, NT Workstation 3.51 or 4.0, or NT Server
3.51 or 4.0.
I initially tested one SQL Server system with one test manager system and
one client system. The specific hardware configurations for these tests were as
follows:
- For the SQL Server platform, I ran NT Server 4.0 and SQL Server 6.5 on a
Total Peripherals 200MHz Pentium Pro with 132MB of memory.
- For the test manager platform, I ran NT Workstation 4.0 on a Dell OptiPlex
GXMT 5133 133MHz Pentium with 32MB of memory
- For the client system, I ran both NT Workstation 4.0 and Windows 95 on a
Toshiba Satellite Pro laptop configured with a 75MHz Pentium and 24MB of memory.
A 10 Mbits per second (Mbps) Ethernet LAN interconnected all these systems.
Install and configure your SQL Server system before you install
Dynameasure. In particular, be sure to establish your network and user
permissions so the test manager and client systems can access the SQL server.
Also be sure to install ODBC support for SQL Server. If you are not familiar
with SQL Server, I strongly recommend that you have access to someone with SQL
Server experience during the installation process--a little humility here will
probably save you a lot of grief as you progress through the installation steps.
Once your SQL Server system is in place and you are confident in your
client/server network connections, you can install Dynameasure. The installation
process involves four phases: manually creating empty Dynameasure databases on
the SQL Server, setting up the test manager system, loading test data on the SQL
Server, and setting up the client systems (the motors). After completing these
four phases, you're ready to begin testing with Dynameasure. (Before you jump
into the testing aspect, you can look at the sidebar, "Installing and
Configuring Dynameasure
," to get a better idea about the installation
steps, which I found to be somewhat quirky.)