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<< Virtual Testers in Functional Tests | The TestManager Environment >>
<< Virtual Testers in Functional Tests | The TestManager Environment >>

Local and Agent Computers

16
Chapter 1 - Introducing Rational TestManager
Virtual Testers in Performance Tests
A virtual tester running a performance test emulates traffic between a client and its
servers. In other words, these virtual tester represent the API-level view of a
client/server conversation. For performance tests, in contrast to functional tests, you
can run many virtual testers on a computer simultaneously.
When you record a session in Robot, Robot records a client's requests -- such as
Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and HTTP requests -- to the server. Robot also records
the server's responses. This traffic is the only activity that Robot records. Robot
ignores GUI actions such as keystrokes and mouse clicks. After recording the session,
Robot generates an appropriate test script. When you run the test script in
TestManager, it plays back the requests that you recorded, but the GUI actions that
you performed and the displays that you saw at record time are not played back.
Running many virtual testers allows you to add a workload to a client/server system.
Virtual testers also let you determine scalability and measure server response times.
You can also use virtual testers to measure client response times to get an end-to-end
response. This is more indicative of what a real user experiences when significant
client processing or screen-painting time is associated with the user activity that you
are measuring. For example, you might have a timer associated with one virtual tester
to find out how much time a query takes when 1000 other virtual testers are sending
requests to the same server at the same time.
Local and Agent Computers
You can coordinate testing activities from a single Windows computer that runs
TestManager. This is called the Local computer.
During the execution of a test, scripts play back on the Local computer or on
computers that you have designated as Agent computers. You use Agent computers to:
s
Add workload to the server, if you are running a performance test.
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Run test scripts on more than one computer. If you are running a functional test,
you can save time by running the test scripts on the next available Agent computer
instead of running them all on the Local computer. Of course, your test scripts
must be modular.
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Test configurations. If you are testing various hardware and software
configurations, you can run test scripts on specific Agent computers that are set up
with these configurations.