Network application performance testing for lotus notes

Abstract

As customers move toward network applications, the problem of acceptable performance and user load stresses have not evaporated. Increasingly, customers need to simulate large network user loads to measure end-to-end response time and identify potential bottlenecks. This paper presents a methodology to achieve this and details results from real applications evaluations on an OS/2 and AIX Lotus Notes 4.1 environment. In all, thirty client machines were setup in a laboratory and linked to an additional set of seventy virtual users all exercising Lotus Notes application test cases to create a user load of 100 active concurrent users. During the process the clients and servers were monitored with various tools. The paper details the process used, a sample of the results, problems found in the process, the metrics required and future directions for network performance test solutions. It will focus mostly on the method of creating large, realistic loads for Lotus Notes applications - a topic largely ignored by the testing community up to this point in time. The subject will be of interest to any owner interested in implementing a network application or client/server application or a test specialist involved in testing these type of applications.