The Proxy Sniffer v2.9 tool contains a unique, special proxy server with integrated ssl tunnels to record unencrypted as well as encrypted HTTP(S) web browser surf sessions. It generates - based on these recorded surf sessions - automatically load test programs in form of Java source code, which can be executed from any system that supports Java. By using a multi-processor UNIX server as load source its possible to emulate up to 500 parallel web surf sessions from one node. The product has also a build-in web server which allows a graphical analysis of the measured test results.

Commonly the generated load test programs don’t need any manually code extensions. The Java code supports already session cookies per parallel user and contains a nearly 100% burned-in copy of the originally recorded surf session.

An evaluation version that supports to emulate up 40 parallel users is direct downloadable at the product page http://www.proxy-sniffer.com/index_en.html

How does this compare with OpenSta (www.opensta.org). It seems to serve roughly the same purpose but this one costs money while OpenSta is free.

I too have the same question. In what way this tool will be better than OpenSTA?
OpenSTA is freeware and Open source, also we can emulate thousands of virtual users. Is this tool offers any resource monitors?

I gave a try to openSTA, but ran into a problem. The recoded script contains this two lines:
  Include "RESPONSE_CODES.INC"
Include "GLOBAL_VARIABLES.INC"
When I try to run it I got a compile error:
Compiling... HJOPS.HTP
scl: error (openin), Error Opening RESPONSE_CODES.INC as Input
-No such file or directory
scl: error (openin), Error Opening GLOBAL_VARIABLES.INC as Input
-No such file or directory
scl: info (endnoobj), HJOPS.HTP Completed with 2 Diagnostics - Object Deleted

Is this a common problem? I checked the documents in their web site, and did not find an answer.

If any one has experience on openSTA, please give some advice.

Thanks in advance :-)

Hi Hong-qi Jia

Please let me know.
Do you got the solution for the below problem you were facing. If yes, please let me know because i too face the same issue. Fast response is appreciable.
Response from other also appreciable.
Thanks in advance
Regards
Bala QA
Macrosoftindia
Kerala, India.
sqabala at hotmail dot com

I gave a try to openSTA, but ran into a problem. The recoded script contains this two lines:
  Include "RESPONSE_CODES.INC"
Include "GLOBAL_VARIABLES.INC"
When I try to run it I got a compile error:
Compiling... HJOPS.HTP
scl: error (openin), Error Opening RESPONSE_CODES.INC as Input
-No such file or directory
scl: error (openin), Error Opening GLOBAL_VARIABLES.INC as Input
-No such file or directory
scl: info (endnoobj), HJOPS.HTP Completed with 2 Diagnostics - Object Deleted

Is this a common problem? I checked the documents in their web site, and did not find an answer.

If any one has experience on openSTA, please give some advice.

Thanks in advance :-)

Hi,

We are performing Load/Performance testing for many projects. The load testing tools we use are LoadRunner and OpenSTA. In general all these tools will have following components.

1) Component for scripting (Recording the transactions and Modeling). This component also offer an option to test your script for single user.
2) Component for running the script with multiple users. This component apart from generating load will also have some resource monitors.
3) Component to but some kind of Analysis reports on the test results. This is totaly optional and LoadRunner provide this.

Any load testing process apart from generating the load we should monitor resource utilization like OS resources (CPU, Memory, Disk I/O etc), Application server resources (No. of Database connections, JVM Used Heap size, No. of threads used, No. of EJB's in the Pool etc) and Database resources (there are many parameters which are really critical)

For this we need specific monitors and many Load testing tool won't offer. You could find some of them with LoadRunner but those monitors are all priced. We have built our own monitoring tools for few Application servers. We also built a tool to compile HTTP file and produces more meaningful statistics.

I would say Performance engineering is not only conducting Load tests but also findout bottlenecks and tune both application and resource utilization and make the customers happy.

Thanks,
Vijay.

The Grinder is also free and Free (BSD like license). The Grinder makes it easy to orchestrate the activities of a test script in many processes across many machines, using a graphical console application. It too has a "unique" HTTP proxy that allows test scripts to be recorded, and supports HTTP, HTTPS, cookies, basic authentication and a whole lot more.

   http://grinder.sourceforge.net/


The Grinder 3 (still in beta, but stable) is also ideal for load testing arbitrary Java code using Jython based scripting. See http://grinder.sourceforge.net/g3/script-gallery.html for examples.

Hi there,

right now I'm using The Grinder 3 to bring our new SAP PortalServer to it's knees :-)! It seems to me that The Grinder is rather good. Thanks to the people who wrote it.

The G3 beta version has a few quirks, for example it takes a while until you can really query https pages (because even if you put an updated ssl-enabled HTTPClient into the classpath, the jython class loader does its own loading magic and loads the HTTPClient from the grinder.jar which means no ssl-support).

But for example HTTPS-recording, Playback, Basic Authentication etc all work nicely.

Cheers from Munich,
    Henrik

Thanks for the bug report Henrik, I'll look into it.

Phil Aston
(Author of The Grinder 2/The Grinder 3)

Advice for load testing success:-

1. Read all the articles you can find by a guy called Alberto Savoia
2. Don't use "number of concurrent users" to drive your load testing activities
3. Perform log analysis and develop realistic usage scenarios
4. Download a copy of The Grinder, record scenarios and away you go!

- Graham

Push To Test: http://www.pushtotest.com/ptt

Apache JMeter: http://jakarta.apache.org/jmeter/index.html

In brief home test (no intent to draw global
conclusions), I found MS-WASP and Grinder are good.
Java-based tools are more versatile but
test machine load (CPU) must be monitored
carefully.

One thing I would suggest out of this: get
second tool to confirm TPS.

http://pages.infinit.net/sir/test/test-1.htm

Alex V.

See also:

http://www.httpunit.org/

http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/latka/

http://www.mercuryinteractive.com/products/loadrunner/

FWIW, HTTPUnit and Latka are functional testing tools that do not fulfil the same role as The Grinder, Proxy Sniffer or Load Runner.

- Phil

Do any of the above mentioned tools support NTLM Authentication? I know that Jmeter does not, and MS WASP do.

Regards,

Andre