Your performance environment is composed of many different
components, such as operating system, middleware, and deployment topology.
Plan the specifics of each component level to create a test environment.
About this task
A dedicated test environment, including both server and
network components, produces the most reliable results. For example,
bandwidth test numbers can be skewed by general traffic on the local
area network. Select your monitoring tools to minimize effects on
system performance.
Procedure
- Ensure that your
test environment meets the following
requirements during benchmark tests:
- An overall
architecture that matches the production environment,
such as the same operating system and middleware platforms, similar
hardware proportions, and the same number of Java™ virtual machines (JVM).
- The same
versions of all deployed software.
- Comparable, sufficient
data in the databases. For example, test
results can vary significantly if a query runs on a test database
of 1000 records when your production database contains 50,000 records.
- Identical server configurations. In the course of testing, you
might find it necessary to modify the test server configuration and
rebuild and deploy new enterprise archive (EAR) files. Keep copies
of the previous EAR files and document any changes that you make.
- Record the following configuration details
for the servers
in both the production and test environments:
- Number
of processors
- Capacity or clock speed of processors
- RAM
capacity
- Disk capacity
- Free space available on disks
- Network interface card (NIC) capacity
- Network bandwidth
What to do next
Write your test cases, then
run your tests. After the
tests are completed, analyze the test results.