Written by Raj
Mercury LoadRunner
Monitors
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LoadRunner uses a suite of
integrated performance monitors. It can
be used to quickly isolate system bottlenecks with minimal impact on the system
that is being tested. The suite consists of monitors for the network,
application servers, web servers and database servers. These monitors are
designed to accurately measure the performance of every single tier, server and
component of the system.
1.1 Available Monitors
The following monitors are
available through LoadRunner:
1. Vuser Status (See Section 1.2 for more details)
2. Transaction Monitor (See Section 1.3 for more details)
1. Network Latency (See Section 1.4 for more details)
4. Web Servers (See Section 1.5 for more details)
5. Database Server (See Section 1.6 for more details)
6. Server Resources (See Section 1.7 for more details)
The following sections
describe these monitors as well as how to configure them.
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1.2 Vuser Status
The Vuser Status monitor
displays the current state of the Vusers (i.e. READY, RUNNING). No configuration is necessary for this
monitor. Data is captured and displayed
automatically.
1.3 Transaction
Monitor
The Transaction monitor
displays the transaction rate and response time during the scenario
execution. No configuration is necessary
for this monitor. Data is captured and
displayed automatically.
1.4 Network Latency
Network monitor can be used to determine whether the
network is causing a delay. Network configuration is a primary factor in the
performance of applications. A poorly designed network can slow client activity
to unacceptable levels.
To measure network
performance, the network monitor sends packets of data across the network. When
a packet returns, the monitor calculates the time it takes for the packet to go
to the requested node and return. This time is the delay that appears on the Network
Delay graph.
To Configure Network
Monitor:
1. First make sure
that the controller is not running any scenario.
- In the
controller window, Go to Online Monitors tab
- Select Monitors->Offline Monitors->Network Delay from the menu
- Check Enable
network delay monitoring checkbox from Network MonitoringAdd button (See Figure 12) window and click on
- Provide
the origin address or host machine location and the destination address on
the network path window (See Figure 13)
- Click OK on network path window and on Network Monitoring window.
- Network
monitoring will start as soon as the scenario is executed.
Figure 12: Network
Monitor configuration window
Figure 13: Setting up the origin and
destination machine
1.5 Web Servers
LoadRunner Web server
monitor is useful in isolating web server performance bottlenecks
Apache Monitor
In order to monitor an Apache
server, it is important to know the server statistics information URL. This
fixed URL enables displaying performance data from a remote client.
The URL should be in the
following format:
http://<server_name/IP
address>:port/server-status?auto (Example: http://stimpy:80/server-status?auto)
In order
to activate the online monitor from the controller:
1. Enter Server name
or IP address of the Apache server machine (see Figure 14)
2. Under server
properties enter the port number, and URL (without server name the default is
/server-status?auto) (see Figure 15)
3. Select counter
measurement
Figure 14: Apache server monitor
Figure
15: Apache monitor counters
Microsoft
Internet Information Server (MS IIS)
IIS monitor is just an
addition to Windows NT Performance Monitor. In order to provide this monitor,
LR simply connects to PerfMon with pre-defined web service object filtering.
Note: To monitor IIS from outside the firewall, TCP port 139
needs to be opened.
To
configure an IIS Monitor:
- Go to Online Monitor tab and highlight IIS from
the Monitor tree.
- Select Monitor->Add Online Measurements and
IIS Monitor window will pop up (see Figure 16)
- In the Monitored Server Machines section of the
IIS dialog box, click Add to enter the server name or IP address of the
machine to be monitored. Select the platform on which the machine runs, and
click OK.
- In the Resource Measurements section of the IIS
dialog box, select the measurements.
- Select counters and instances. The instance is
relevant only if multiple instances of the highlighted counter are running
(see Figure 17)
- Click Add to place the selected counter on the
resource list. Add all the desired resources to the list and then click
Close.
- Click OK in the IIS dialog box to activate the
monitor.
Figure 16: IIS
monitor
Figure 17: IIS
monitor counters
1.6 Database Servers
Microsoft SQL Server Monitor
SQL Server monitor measures
the standard NT system resources on the databse server machine.
Note: To monitor SQL Server from outside the firewall, TCP
port 139 needs to be opened.
To Configure SQL Server Monitoring:
- Go to Online Monitor tab and highlight SQL
Server from the Monitor tree.
- Select Monitor->Add Online Measurements and SQL Server Monitor window will pop up (see Figure 18)
- In the Monitored Server Machines section
of the SQL Server dialog box, click Add to enter the server
name or IP address of the machine to be monitored. Select the platform on
which the machine runs, and click OK.
- In the Resource Measurements section of
the SQL Server dialog box, select the measurements.
- Select a counter and instance. The instance is
relevant only if multiple instances of the highlighted counter are running
(see Figure 19)
- Click Add to place the selected counter on
the resource list. Add all the desired resources to the list and then
click Close.
- Click OK in the SQL Server dialog
box to activate the monitor.
Figure 18: SQL Server monitor.
Figure 19: SQL Server counters
Oracle Monitor
The Oracle monitor measures information from Oracle V$
tables: Session statistics, (V$SESSTAT), and system statistics, (V$SYSSTAT). In
order to view the information in the Oracle V$ tables, first set up the list of
Oracle servers available to the client and configure the desired
username/password/server combination.
Before
configuring Oracle Monitor in the Controller, the following environment needs
to be setup:
- Install
the Oracle client libraries on the Controller machine and make sure that
the machine has database administrator privileges.
- Ensure
that the registry on the Controller machine is updated for the version of
Oracle that is being used and has the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE
- Check
to see that the Oracle servers are up and running
- Run
SQL*Plus from the Controller and attempt to log in to the Oracle server(s)
with the desired username/password/server combination.
- Type SELECT
* FROM V$SYSSTAT to verify that the V$SYSSTAT table on the Oracle
server can be viewed. Use similar queries to verify the other tables on
the server(s). Make sure that the Oracle bin directory is in the search
path.
Note: To monitor Oracle from outside the firewall, port(s)
that need to be opened depends on the configuration
of Oracle Server (tnsnames.ora file)
To Configure Oracle
Monitoring:
- Go to the Online Monitor tab in the
LoadRunnner Controller. Highlight Oracle from the Monitor tree.
- Select Monitor->Add Online Measurements. The Oracle Monitor window will
pop up (Figure 5e)
- In the Monitored Server Machines section
of the Oracle dialog box, click Add to enter the server name
or IP address of the machine to be monitored. Select the platform on which
the machine runs, and click OK.
- In the Resource Measurements section of
the Oracle dialog box, select the desired counters for the
measurement. The Oracle Logon dialog box opens.
- Enter login name, password, and Server name, and
click OK. The Add Oracle Measurements dialog box opens.
- Select an object, measurement, and instance. The
instance is relevant only if multiple instances of the highlighted
measurements are running. See below for suggestion on which counters are
useful.
- Click Add to place the selected
measurement on the resource list. Add all the desired resources to the
list and then click Close. Click OK in the Oracle dialog box to activate the monitor.
Some Metrics from V$SYSSTAT Table
- CPU
used by this session
The amount of CPU time (in
10s of ms) used by a session between a user call started and ended.
- Bytes
received via SQL*Net from client
The total number of bytes received from the client over Net8
- Logons
current
The total number of current logons
- Opens
of replaced files
The total number of files
that needed to be reopened because they were no longer in the process file
cache.
- User
calls
The total number of user calls.
- SQL*Net
roundtrip to/from client
Total number of Net8
messages sent to and received from the client.
- Bytes
sent via SQL*Net to client
The total number of bytes
sent to the client from the foreground process(es)
- Opened
cursors current
The total number of
current open cursors.
- DB
block changes
The total number of
changes that were made to all blocks in the SGA that were part of an update or
delete operation.
- Total
file opens
The total number of file
opens being performed by the instance.
1.7 Server
Resources
Windows NT/2000
Windows NT/2000
measurements correspond to the built-in counters available from the NT/2000
Performance Monitor.
Note: To monitor a remote
NT machine that does not use NT domain security, the Controller machine needs
to be authenticated on the remote NT server. To authenticate the Controller
machine, create an account, or change the password of the account used to log
on to the Controller so that it matches the password and user name used to log
on to the remote monitored NT machine. When the remote NT machine requests
another machines resources, it sends the logged-in user name and password of
the machine requesting the resources.
Configuring NT/2000 Server
Resources:
See Configuring UNIX Server
Resources Section
UNIX
Figure 20: Unix Resources
UNIX measurements include
the counters from the rstatd protocol: average load, collision rate, context
switch rate, CPU utilization, incoming packets error rate, incoming packets
rate, interrupt rate, outgoing packets error rate, outgoing packets rate,
page-in rate, page-out rate, paging rate, swap-in rate, swap-out rate, system
mode CPU utilization, and user mode CPU utilization.
Note: rstatd process needs
to be started on all UNIX machines being monitored. Refer to UNIX man pages on
how to start a rstatd process if not automatically started.
Table 3
|
Measurement
|
Description
|
|
Average load
|
Average number of
processes simultaneously in Ready state during the last minute. |
|
Collision rate
|
Collisions per second
detected on the Ethernet |
|
Context switches rate
|
Number of switches
between processes or threads per second |
|
CPU utilization
|
Percent of time that the
CPU is utilized |
|
Disk rate
|
Rate of disk transfers |
|
Incoming packets error
rate
|
Errors per second while
receiving Ethernet packets |
|
Incoming packets rate
|
Incoming Ethernet packets
per second |
|
Interrupt rate
|
Number of device interrupts
per second |
|
Outgoing packets
errors rate
|
Errors per second while
sending Ethernet packets |
|
Outgoing packets rate
|
Outgoing Ethernet packets
per second |
|
Page-in rate
|
Number of pages read to
physical memory per second |
|
Page-out rate
|
Number of pages written
to pagefiles(s) and removed from physical memory per second |
|
Paging rate
|
Number of pages read to
physical memory or written to pagefile(s) per second |
|
Swap-in rate
|
Number of processes being
swapped-in to memory per second |
|
Swap-out rate
|
Number of processes being
swapped-out from memory per second |
|
System mode CPU
utilization
|
Percent of time that the
CPU is utilized in system mode |
|
User mode CPU
utilization
|
Percent of time that the
CPU is utilized in user mode |
Configuring Server Resources Monitor for both
Windows NT/2000 and UNIX:
1. Go
to Online Monitor tab and highlight Server Resources from the
Monitor tree.
2. Select Monitor->Add
Online Measurements. The Server
Resources Monitor window will pop up.
3. In the Monitored
Server Machines section of the Server Resources dialog box, click Add
to enter the server name or IP address of the machine to be monitored. Select
the platform (Windows or UNIX) on which the machine runs, and click OK.
4. In the Resource
Measurements section of the Server Resources dialog box, select the
measurements.
5. Select a
counter(s).
6. Click Add
to place the selected counter on the resource list. Add all the desired
resources to the list and then click Close.
7. Click OK in
the Server Resources dialog box to activate the monitor.
