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skynet's avatar
skynet
New Contributor
13 years ago

Ramp Generator - Unit/Period

Hi,

I'm trying to create a load test using the Ramp Generator.
I'm wondering what happens to the period value if I switch the Unit to min or Hour?
As far as I hav'e understood if the Unit is set to seconds, the Period means the time taken till the end value of the Ramp Generator is reached.
But if I set the unit to minutes, it seems that the Period value has no effect at all?!

I'm also wondering why I have to wait one minute, if I change the Unit to minutes? Why doesn't it start directly with generating requests?

Another understanding issue I've got: If I set the Ramp Generator for example to start with 0 and end with 20, the number of requests will be 20/sec after the period is reached. But this isn't a real user behaviour.
What would be the best way to really simulate a user?
  • AndyHughes's avatar
    AndyHughes
    Regular Contributor
    Nothing happens to the period value. Thats always in seconds.

    If you change from ramping up from 0 - 20/sec to ramping up from 0 - 20/min than that's what will happen over the prescribed period. So I think if you did something like 0-20/min over 30 seconds then after 30 secs you will be at a rate of 20/min. Don't forget that the test can run for longer than the 'period'. Thats just the ramp up period.

    Are you talking about changing to mins or hours part way through the test?

    In terms of simulating users, it really depends on what you expect them to do. They may not do it in a uniform fashion as your generator will produce but so what. If you load your system to find it's limits then you know what rate of requests it can handle.
  • skynet's avatar
    skynet
    New Contributor
    AndyHughes wrote:
    Nothing happens to the period value. Thats always in seconds.
    If you change from ramping up from 0 - 20/sec to ramping up from 0 - 20/min than that's what will happen over the prescribed period. So I think if you did something like 0-20/min over 30 seconds then after 30 secs you will be at a rate of 20/min. Don't forget that the test can run for longer than the 'period'. Thats just the ramp up period.

    Thanks for the explanation. I thought the Period unit would change also.

    AndyHughes wrote:

    Are you talking about changing to mins or hours part way through the test?

    Well I wanted to start with minutes. So my plan was to set it up to 500 req/minute with a period of 10 minutes.

    AndyHughes wrote:

    In terms of simulating users, it really depends on what you expect them to do. They may not do it in a uniform fashion as your generator will produce but so what. If you load your system to find it's limits then you know what rate of requests it can handle.

    Guess I have to think more in site requests than in users
    But thats fine. Depending on the statistic for the webiste I can more or less calculate the number of users.