Software performance problems can be notoriously difficult to resolve. An unknown set of actions and conditions can combine to result in degradation in system responsiveness. With little information as to what causes these problems, system administrators have to resort to recycling the application container, losing all contextual information that contributed to the problem. The system once again runs as expected... until the next time.
To help solve this problem, Adaptavist have developed the Load Replication Tool, a plugin and application that records and replicates all user activity on a system over a set period of time. This gives you the ability to replay collected user activity exactly as it was executed. With the Load Replication tool, you can therefore use advanced monitoring and diagnostic tools to find the cause of problems in a test environment, that's being subjected to an accurate representation of load recorded in your production environment.
You can make the switch from just being responsive to being pro-active. Our tools enables system performance to be monitored by regularly replaying user activity data sets on test instances, allowing you to spot potential problems before they become apparent in production environments.
The tool consists of two components:
Recorder (Confluence plugin)
Once installed, the Recorder plugin creates a new database table in the Confluence database. During recording, all user requests to Confluence are recorded in this table. The plugin records a wide array of data with respect to the original request, in order to ensure that the replayed request duplicates the original.
The administration interface for the plugin provides control for enabling/disabling the collection of the user activity data. It is possible to schedule recording for a specified period between two date/times. This helps enable weekend or over-night recording sessions without the need for an administrator to start recording.
The Recorder also captures the response and timing measurements associated with each request, allowing for comparison and validation with subsequent replays. The Recorder has been developed to avoid adversely affecting Confluence performance while recording.
Player (Stand-alone application)
Once a recording has been collected via the Recorder plugin, the standalone Player application is used to replay the data gathered.
The Player application parses the collected user activity data and replays the data against the specified instance of Confluence. The activity data is replayed exactly as it was collected.
While some tools provide load/stress testing capabilities that can be configured to imitate user activity, the Player replicates the recorded user activity exactly as it was collected. Other testing tools do not provide this level of specificity in relation to how or when a request is made - elements that may be vital in reproducing the problem scenario.
