1. LoadGen
  2. LoadGen Applications
  3. LoadGen Director

LoadGen Director Tools: Systems Under Test (SUT)

Updated

LoadGen Release Q3 2021 introduces Systems Under Test collecting via LoadGen Agents

With the LoadGen Q3 2021 release we introduce a new way of collecting Systems Under Test, you can also deploy LoadGen Agents to as a hub to collect other machines' Performance Counters.

 

LoadGen Agent Performance

Please note that using the LoadGen Agent for launching sessions (Citrix, Microsoft Remote Desktop, VMware Horizon, and Azure Virtual Desktop) in combination with collecting Performance Counters may have a performance impact on your LoadGen Agent and thus your test results. Keep in mind that your test infrastructure can not be the bottleneck while performing a load test.

You can monitor the performance of a machine in your environment during Load and Performance testing or End-to-End monitoring. This will give you diagnostic information and insight into how your environment performs in relation to application performance/user experience.
 
  1. LoadGen Agents can be used in four ways: 
    1. to launch user sessions
    2. to collect performance counters.
    3. to use within a VDI to play workloads, VMware Horizon, and Azure Virtual Desktop.
    4. either a and b.
  2. The SUT is a totally separate process from launching the test users, test users usually don’t have enough rights to collect performance counters.
  3. It’s possible to have multiple Run as Profiles for either:
    1. LoadGen Agents, for example, you can host the LoadGen Agent on a NOT-domain joined machine, hence the separate Run As Profile.
    2. SUT machines are normally connected to the domain, hence the AD account with local admin rights for the machines to collect performance counters from.
  4. You can collect performance counters in two ways:
    1. From the Director – don’t install the Agent on the local machine because the Director itself will handle the process of collecting performance counters.
    2. From a LoadGen Agent, this is now used as stepping stones to the actual machines which you want to collect performance counters from.

Load Profile / Canvas

The Systems Under Test (SUT) can be found on the tab page Systems Under Test in each canvas. You can create one or more Systems Under Test profiles and select the appropriate one for your needs.

 

Add a new Systems Under Test profile

After pressing the Add button you can create a new, empty, Systems Under Test profile. Just enter the name for your SUT profile and press OK. After creating the profile activate the profile and click Manage.

 

Manage Systems Under Test

After pressing the Manage button the Systems Under Test wizard will open. The wizard will lead you through a couple of steps explained in the following chapters.
  •  SUT Profiles: here you can create, remove and clone different SUT profiles, these profiles can be used in all of your canvasses
  • Available machines: here you can create, edit and delete multiple machines. You can only use Windows machines at this time, please note that you must allow traffic to the remote machine and have a local administrator account. Read more in this article.
  • Templates: templates are really convenient if you want to create specific collections of counters which you want to reuse fast
  • Machines in SUT Profile: here you will link all the items together, drag and drop an available machine to this pane and link a template and/or add multiple counters at once

Step 1: Select and Configure your LoadGen Agents

The functionality of Systems under Test is totally renewed from the LoadGen Q3 2021 release. You can now use LoadGen Agents to retrieve Systems Under Tests from machines in the proximity of the LoadGen Agent physical location. As an example: you have multiple data centers in different locations. Just add a LoadGen Agent in each data center and collect the Performance Counters of each machine you want to collect the Performance Counters.
 
You also get a default 'Agent' called the Director, this is the LoadGen Director itself. If you select the Director as a LoadGen Agent, all of the machines connected to this Agent will be retrieved from the Director software itself (after starting a test).
 
The creation of LoadGen Agents is described in this article, make sure the version of the LoadGen Agents is the same as the version for the LoadGen Director.
 
In the image below you can see an example of available LoadGen Agents versus LoadGen Agents to use in your test, just drag and drop the Agents from left to right and vice versa.

 

Step 2: Configure Systems Under Test machines

Here you can create, edit and delete Systems Under Test (SUT) machines. SUT machines are machines from which you want to collect Performance Counters. You can only use Windows machines at this time, please note that you must allow network traffic from the LoadGen Agent to the remote machine and have a local administrator account.
 
In the image below you can see an example of available LoadGen Agents versus LoadGen Agents to use in your test, just drag and drop the Agents from left to right and vice versa. If you activate a machine (so drag it from the left to right pane) the Performance Counter configuration wizard will start.

 

Step 3: Add Systems Under Test machines

When adding new machines you see the following form, here you can add the machines from which you want to collect the performance counters.

 

Step 4: Activate Systems Under Test machines

As stated in Step 2, if you activate a machine (so drag it from the left to right pane) the Performance Counter configuration wizard will start.
 
Step 1: Select which LoadGen Agent you want to use.

 

Step 2: Select one or more Templates to use.
 
You can create Templates for grouping Performance Counters. The Default LoadGen counters are really convenient to use with the Common Charts in the LoadGen Analyzer. To create a Template read the following article.

 

Step 3: Select one or more Performance Counters to use.
 
If you select the Choose additional, individual counters in the next step all of the Performance Counters on the remote machine will be selected. Choose the counters you want to incorporate in your test and press Next.

 

Step 4: Completing the wizard.
 
You are good to go, press Finish and you have created your Systems Under Test machine.

 

Creating templates

You can create Templates for grouping Performance Counters. When you open the Template Manager you can create Systems Under Test Templates very fast.
 
Within the Template Manager, you can Add, Edit or Delete Templates.

 

Adding a new Template

  1. Press the Add button.
  2. Add the Performance Counters via:
    1. An Excel file.
    2. Manually entering the Performance Counters.
    3. Retrieve the Performance Counters from a machine (which will only work through the Manage Systems Under Test wizard).



    4. When you retrieve the Performance Counters from a machine you can choose which machine to use.



    5. Choose the Performance Counters to use in your Template.



    6. Enter a name and description for your new Template and press Save.

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