Hi!
The close-connections option will close the socket connection to the target service after each request, which could be a more realistic simulation of different clients connecting to the service instead of only a limited number that are reusing existing connections (via the HTTP 1.1 keep-alive mechanism). Since connections are not reused, this will increase load on both the server and soapUI; both need to create new sockets/connections instead of reusing existing ones..
So if your target service usually handles requests from mostly unique clients, then you could select this option to give a more realistic simulation, but if you service is mostly handling requests from the same clients (which uss HTTP 1.1/keep-alives), then you don't need to select this option..
Hope this explains a bit!
regards,
/Ole
eviware.com