Proxy Sniffer

Knowing what the limits of your application server are is essential in order to fine tune it. Proxy-sniffer is a web performance measurement application (load test tool) that works with all popular web- and application servers (Apache, IIS, Weblogic,Tomcat, etc..)

Untuned system are easy targets of DoS attacks and might offer a frustrating end-user experience under load.

Proxy Sniffer combines all essential features in order to professionally load test your application server.

• Universal HTTP/S Web Session Recorder
  The recorder can be used with any web browser (MSIE, Firefox, Safari) to record HTTP and HTTPS web sessions, which can then be used to automatically create optimized Java-based load test programs.
  
  
• High-performance GUI - no programming necessary
  The recorded web sessions can be manipulated using the GUI - before a load test program is created. Complex requirements, such as individual test user accounts, or the handling of dynamic CGI session paramters, can be handled with a few mouse clicks. Handling these requirements involves no manual programming of the created Java load testing code.
  
  
• Realistic Test Scenarios
  During the execution of a load test, simulated users' "think time" can be specified for each web page, including a randomly-generated deviation to better simulate actual users' behaviour. Many different Load Test programs - based on different recorded Web Sessions - can be run simultaneously.
  
  
• Unlimited Scalability
  By combining many Unix and Windows load releasing systems into a "virtual cluster", an essentially unlimited high load can be simulated. A virtual cluster is easily constructed by using the GUI. The load tests are automatically distributed among the clustered systems, and the results are consolidated into a single overall result.
  
  
• Automatic protection from "false positive" Results
  Proxy Sniffer compares during a load test the content of text-based web pages (HTML, XML, etc.) with the content of original web pages using a unique heuristic algorithm, thereby recognising errors which are only detectable by looking at the actual web page content - even when a correct HTTP response code is returned. This protection against "false positive" results is available automatically.
  
  
• Detailed Error Analysis using saved error snapshots
  When an error occurs, Proxy Sniffer saves a complete copy of all data exchanged between the client and the server in the form of a "frozen snapshot". After the test has been completed, or even during the test, the actual error can be analysed to determine the circumstances under which the error occurred.
  
  
• Real-Time Statistics
  During a load test, the most important measurements are displayed graphically in real-time, allowing monitoring of the progress of the test. Online access to the "frozen error snapshots" is also possible; therefore, error analysis does not have to wait for the test to be completed. At any point during the test, the behaviour of all simulated users can be observed in real-time.
  
  
• Detailed Measurement Results
  After the end of every test, there are over 14 different diagrams and statistics available. From these results, a complete formatted test report can be created as a PDF document. Results from different load tests can be compared to each other, allowing the efficiency of tuning measures to be verified. Summary

Sample applications

• Load test (or stress test) webserver like Apache, Tomcat, IIS, Weblogic and others.
• Detect bottlenecks that often become evident even under light loads.
• Load test connections to backend databases like MySQL, Oracle, Informix.
• The test flow can be easilly recorded through a proxy-like recording mechanism.