Visual Studio Hacks

330

|

Chapter 10, Work with Visual Studio Tools

#79 Stress Test Web Applications

HACK

Stress Testing Configurations

The ACT tool generates load by using a web browser. In all configurations,

the web browser is the client. And because the client is just a web browser, it

can invoke HTTP calls to any web server, local or remote. This creates a few

different configurations for setting up your stress tests. A typical web appli-

cation will consist of several layers that are (possibly) deployed across multi-

ple tiers. This means that your stress test configuration will likely fall into

one of the three configurations shown in Figure 10-4.

Here is an explanation of Figure 10-4:

• Configuration A shows that the client, the web server, and the applica-

tion logic all run on the same machine. This will likely be a developer’s

workstation.

• Configuration B shows the client is now physically separated from the

web server and application logic, both of which are still deployed

together on the same box. This is the case in which the web application

is running on a separate server and the developer is using her machine

as the client.

• Configuration C shows that the client, web server, and application logic

are all running on separate machines.

Also note that products such as Virtual PC or VMWare could be used to

emulate any of these configurations on a single machine. In fact, it’s highly

suggested you use these