Is it possible to stress test a managed host (not my own machine) using VS 2008?
Although it is not free:Visual Studio 2008 Team System Test Edition is a good stress test tool.
VS 2008 doesn't really have built-in tools to test at any volume, but there are free ones out there:
Apache Bench - Made by apache, but usable against any web server
Web Capacity Analysis Tool - Microsoft
As stress test tool I liked "Grinder" a lot and found it easy to use.
You will be able to stress test against the external machine, however you will not be able to see any perfmon stats from the target machines.
You will also probably cause serious consternation with your hosting provider as a good load test stresses the network pretty hard. You may want to talk to them before going ahead.
From an external source you will also likely include network effects in your test, so different times of day will result in different network loads and different results.
Ideally you would want to install a load test controller and agent on a server on the same switch as the target to get high loads on your application. This does require a hefty licence however.
Visual Studion 2010 has better licencing for the Load Test Agent, but may be more expensive than you want.
Related
I hope this question isn't too obtuse; however, I couldn't find anything specific. I'm a web-developer and I have an MSDN Subscription that gives me access to any SQL server edition I want. As a developer, I would like to know what I should choose to install on a dev machine based on this criteria (which other developers may relate to):
I need access to all the tools for SQL and T-SQL programming (I think all editions come with this?)
I want it to be efficient--I don't want it to take up too much ram\cpu processing time. My queries will not be very heavy so I'd rather trade off longer queries than to have the server taking up valuable resources.
I am programming for an enterprise sql version hosted somwhere else, but I don't need more than 1 Gigs of space, 1 CPU core support,
I never really worked with reporting tools, but would as a developer (Aka, non-DBA) would I ever need them on a dev machine?
Best integration with VS2013
I know that the SQL Server Developer edition is basically Enterprise, but without the liscence to use it for non-dev purposes. Based on the above criteria is there any sense for me to install it? Or should I choose SQL Express with Advanced Services? Perhaps Web?
Thanks for all your help,
All editions come with all the tools (unless you get into the BI side of things, then I think Express won't come with all of those tools).
In general, the edition won't make your local development environment any different in terms of resource usage. There are a few things that Enterprise / Developer have (like online index rebuild, certain optimizations etc.) that can make some operations more efficient, but these are highly unlikely to impact your day-to-day work or really change the number of resources SQL Server uses (these are very easy to cap through configuration anyway, e.g. if you don't want SQL Server to use more than x GB of memory, you can set that).
If you don't need more than 1 GB / 1 CPU in the ultimate deployment, you should probably develop on Express. This will prevent you from using Enterprise features inadvertently (which can happen if you use Developer). The down-side is that if you later do need features that aren't in Express (say you have another project where you will be deploying to Enterprise), you'll need to add an instance (with or without removing the old one). Given that you have access to MSDN, maybe the best solution is to install two instances - one Express, and one Developer, and then you can target the edition you want by using the appropriate instance locally.
I think that Express with Advanced Services come with these things, but I'm not an SSRS guy, so I'm not sure.
No single aspect of integration with Visual Studio should be edition-dependent.
Also, Web is not an edition that is suitable for your workstation - try to find a license somewhere. This edition is exclusively for web hosts and resellers who offer SQL Server as part of their hosted offerings.
I've had this setup, but it didn't seem quite right.
How would you improve Content Delivery (CD) development across multiple .NET (customer) development teams?
CMS Server -> Presentation Server Environments
CMS Production -> Live and Preview websites
CMS Combined Test + Acceptance (internally called "Staging") -> Live ("Staging")
CMS Development (DEV) -> Live (Dev website) and sometimes Developer local machines (laptops)
Expectations and restrictions:
Multiple teams and multiple websites
Single DEV CMS license (typical for customers, I believe?)
Enough CD licenses for each developer
Preferably developer could program and run changes locally--was this a reasonable expectation?
Worked
We developed ASP.NET pages using the Content Delivery API against the same broker database for local machines and CD DEV. Local machines had CD dlls, their own license files, and ran/debug fine with queries and component presentation calls.
Bad
We occasionally published to both the Dev presentation server and Developer machines which doesn't seem right now, but I think it was to get schema files on our local machines. But yes, we didn't trust the Dev broker database.
Problematic:
Local machines sometimes needed Tridion-published pages but we couldn't reliably publish to local machines:
Setting multiple publication destinations for a single "Local Machine" publication target wouldn't work--we'd often take these "servers" home.
VPN blocked access to laptops offsite (used "incoming" folder at the time).
Managing publication targets for each developer and setting up CD for each new laptop was good practice (as in exercise, not necessarily as a good idea) but just a little tedious.
Would these hindsight approaches apply?
Synchronize physical files from Dev to local machines on our own?
Don't run presentation sites locally (localhost) but rather build, upload dll, and test from Dev?
We were simply missing a fourth CMS environment? As much as we liked our Sales Guy, we weren't interested in purchasing another CM license.
How could you better setup .NET CD for several developers in an organization?
Edit: #DominicCronin pointed out this is only a subset of a proper DTAP setup. I updated my terms and created a separate question to clarify DTAP with Tridion.
The answer to this one is heavily depending on the publish model you choose.
When using a dynamic model with a framework like DD4T you will suffice with just a single dev environment. There is one CMS, and one CD server in that environment and everything is published to a broker database. The CD environment could be used as an auto build system, the developers purely work locally on a localhost website (which gets the data from the dev broker database), and their changes are checked in an VCS (based on which the auto build could be done).
This solution can do with only a single CMS because there is hardly any code developed on the CMS side (templates are standardized and all work is done on the CD side).
It gets more complex if you are using a static or broker publishing model. Then I think the solution is to split Dev up in Unit-Dev and Dev indeed as indicated by Nuno and Chris.
This solution requires coding on both the CMS and CD side, so every developer has a huge benefit in having its own local CMS and CD env.
Talk to your Tridion account manager and agree a license package that suits the development model you want to have. Of course, they want to maximise their income, but the various things that get counted are all really meant to ensure that big customers pay accordingly, and smaller customers get something they can afford at a price that reflects the benefits they get. In fact, setting up a well-thought-out development street with a focus on quality is the very thing that will ensure good customer satisfaction and a long-running engagement.
OK - so the account managers still have internal rules to follow, but they also have a fair amount of autonomy in coming to a sensible deal with a customer. I'm not saying this will always work, but its way better than blindly assuming that they are going to insist on counting every server the same way.
On the technical side - sure, try to have local developer setups and a common master dev server a-la Chris's 5th. These days, your common dev environment should probably be seen as a build/integration server: the first place where the team guarantees all the tests will run.
Requirements for CM and CD development aren't very different, although you may be able to publish to multiple developer targets from one CM if there's not much CM development going on. (This is somewhat true of MVC-ish approaches, but it's no silver bullet.)
I have a Visual Studio 2010 Professional license so Ultimate is a long way off and all I want it for is load testing for a few weeks or so.
Is there a cheaper way of getting just the load testing part of VS2010 ultimate or an alternate load testing tool with decent metrics of how the load testing is doing? I'd like to know pages/sec, page speed, database connections and less important: CPU, memory, errors.
I have always found that the Radview Webload tool gives a good alternative but you will probably need to set up performance counters for CPU etc... and tie the data together yourself. Have you considered using an evaluation version of Ultimate to check if that would meet you needs? ;)
We developed a free Fiddler extension for load testing called StresStimulus. It replays sessions recorded in Fiddler under varied load levels and measures performance metrics. It is not nearly as complete as testing tools in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, but satisfies some of your requirements. You can get requests per/s and response times. The interface with PerfMon is not ready yet, so Windows performance counters should be tied manually.
Maybe you can set up Instrumentation on your app?
Is there any performance different between hosting your asp.net in mono on linux and iis on window server?
Of course there is a difference, just like there is a performance difference between Java and .Net. However, it is going to vary widely based on what the application is doing.
There are things where .Net is much faster than Mono. There are things where Mono is much faster than .Net. There are things where they perform roughly equal. The same holds true when comparing applications running on Windows or Linux. The same holds true when comparing applications running on IIS and Apache.
Likely, either can run your application fast enough, and you will find that your performance is going to be driven by your programming techniques. The difference of a few requests per second probably isn't a huge issue unless you have a large server farm, in which case you most likely have the resources to test on both and see which is faster for your particular application.
In regards to the suggestion by lextm that publishing the results of perf comparisons is "not possible", the End-User License Agreement (aka EULA) for Windows Vista Ultimate allows it, with conditions.
MICROSOFT .NET BENCHMARK TESTING. The
software includes one or more
components of the .NET Framework 3.0
(“.NET Components”). You may conduct
internal benchmark testing of those
components. You may disclose the
results of any benchmark test of those
components, provided that you comply
with the conditions set forth at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=66406.
Notwithstanding any other agreement
you may have with Microsoft, if you
disclose such benchmark test results,
Microsoft shall have the right to
disclose the results of benchmark
tests it conducts of your products
that compete with the applicable .NET
Component, provided it complies with
the same conditions set forth at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=66406.
The conditions, as I read them, are reasonable disclosure requirements: the source code you used to do the testing, the versions of software you tested, the date you conducted the tests, the configuration and optimizations you made, etc.
The EULA for Windows Server 2003 includes the same provisions. I couldn't find the EULA for Windows Server 2008 (the latest incarnation) but I assume the benchmarking provisions remain.
Addendum: If you look in the EULA for Windows7, you will probably find a no-benchmarking clause, or more accurately a no-publish clause; this is because Win7 is still in pre-release. When it is officially released, expect the standard benchmark publishing conditions to be present.
In the past Microsoft had a more restrictive policy on this topic. Basically: you need permission from us (Microsoft) to disclose performance comparisons. This policy has been relaxed, even retroactively to .NET v1.0 and v1.1, as per the link in the above EULA.
Mono sucks!
http://art-blog.no-ip.info/cppcms/blog/post/27
http://www.phpvs.net/2008/02/08/benchmarking-mono-aspnet-vs-php-a-slight-problem/
Or more politically correct: Mono is not yet ready for prime time at least for Asp.Net web applications:
No support of caching
Performance is terribly unstable and dropping after application start.
EDIT: Added quotes for my post, answer to latest comment.
However, in order to make fair comparison ... I should enable caching ... adding following line at the header of aspx file should help me.
<%# OutputCache Duration="20" VaryByParam="None" %>
I'd done it — no result! The performance is the same.
Note: after deeper check, the implementation of cache in modo is very limited and poor, after recent checks it still holds in newer versions of mono.
Ok, anyway I did some benchmarks(...)simple clock gives me about 750 pages per second
for cached variant and 650 for non cached one.
The tests were done under IIS 5.0 on Dual Core Pentium D 3G
The same code ... with mod_mono (under Signle Core AMD Athlon 3000)
had given me:
350 pages per second.
Next run had given 300.
next 200
and next 150
So, benchmarking is impossible.
Does referring to post is still not augmentative?
No mono is definitely not ready for prime-time.
Here is a nice benchmark where someone tested the difference of windows/IIS vs Linux/Apache/Mono(mod_mono). Crazy enough mod_mono (apache's mono plugin) was significantly more performant. Granted I am sure that in certain circumstances it would be different, but given how low profile linux and apache are plus the great job the mono guys have done, it stands to reason that Linux/Apache/Mono is a better way to go. Now that being said, hopefully with the new open source ASP, we will see some super performant Linux .Net servers coming soon (primed and ready for the cloud).
graph of the performance comparison
I've run mono apps under mod_mono. From a usability, it functions fine, though I didn't do any benchmarks. Still IIS really is an incredibly convenient environment to work in. Given the choice I'd still hosts my web-server in IIS and use linux mono clients to connect to it.
First, it was said that publishing performance statistics to compare CLR implementations (.NET vs Mono) is not possible.I am not sure what is the source, but Mono team only published comparison among Mono versions (1.x, 2.0, 2.2, and 2.4), so I assume the saying is real. Therefore, you can only test the performance in your own environment.
Second, Mono is evolving much faster lately, which gives you a chance to gain performance boost simply by upgrading Mono runtime.
Third, please use a different attitude to judge an open source product. For closed source products, you can do nothing but begging its vendor to improve performance or providing your support on how to tune your applications. For open source projects, you have access to the code base, and you can tailor it to suit your own needs, and fix the issues for your own applications.
As jpobst mentioned, even if you cannot fix issues yourself, you can contact the Mono guys.
I'm currently using a linux server, we run a couple of web sites of it, PHP apps with MySQL, the usual. Since the server is privately owned by some friends and myself (we do have it hosted at a professional datacenter though), from time to time we also use it to host our smallish counter-strike source and call of duty 4 matches by running the released dedicated game server packages.
I've recently subscribed to DevExpress' excellent WinForms and ASP.Net component suite, and is contemplating moving to Windows to make use of those ASP.Net components. I'm currently trying to decide between the Web and Standard editions of Windows Server, since there is a difference of nearly a thousand bucks (where I come from)
For Windows Web Server 2008, Microsoft has softened the database server restrictions and made it clear there is no need for CALs. But would one be able to run the above mentioned web servers? I've been googling and searching through forums to no avail.
Need some help before I plunk in the cash.
Thanks.
Before I give any opinion, I'll start by answering your core questions:
Yes, you can run dedicated game servers on Windows Server Web ed.
The differences between web and standard:
Web only supports 2 gigs of ram. Standard in 64bit mode can support 32gigs (and more?).
Standard comes with more things that are better suited to local server environments (eg: active directory). If you want LDAP controlled Exchange email, you'll need Standard. Most web server don't need these.
Web (apparently) won't support full-on SQL server versions. Express should run though.
Opinion time.
Dedicated and virtual dedicated monetary overheads on Windows servers are a lot... To the degree where you're paying more for the software than the hardware costs, at least for the first year.
Renting the software (as part of a managed dedicated server or VPS) is initially a lot cheaper, but over the course of a couple of years, will cost you about the same and if you run it longer, it'll eventually cost you more.
Shared Windows hosts can be good. I've been with a company called Hostek (Florida-based) and they've bent over backwards to make hosting a fairly busy site (around 6000 uniques a day) very cheap for me. It can also be atrocious. I've had bad hosting companies too. Shop around.
About a year ago, I dropped Windows at home in favour of Linux. I'm not going to enumerate the many benefits and drawbacks; I'll just tell you that that's when I stopped doing .NET in favour of more open Frameworks. I'm not using Django (a Python-based web framework). While you might not like it (or other frameworks - eg Ruby on Rails), I plead that you do check out what's happening in the open-source world before you plonk for anything Windows related since you already have the infrastructure available for hosting Django/Rails/et al.
If you wanted your own Linux server, VPSs start from around $20pcm. As I said before, severely cheaper than Windows counterparts. I now use Linode to host everything new I make. Highly affordable and they'll easily run dedicated games like your current set-up does.
Mono isn't an option for you. Not yet anyway. It does go some length to help people migrate their applications but it's still pretty sketchy on the ASPNET front. And as a comment says on another answer: the controls you want to use are strictly Windows-only for the moment.
Linux will consume fewer baseline resources than Windows will. On an old server (Windows 2000, IIRC) I had to administer, the core of Windows would consume anywhere from 100-200 megs of RAM. My current Ubuntu server eats 40megs. I'm not sure how much RAM you have to play with on your server but if it's a lower amount, you're going to fit a lot more on a Linux host. (Remember that if you have more than 2gigs, you don't have the choice of the Web Server edition)
It's clear from this that I'm a complete Linux super-enthusiast, but I know my needs differ from yours. ASP.NET is a great platform but it costs a lot of money even if you're splitting it between friends. You could opt for Windows... Or you could go Linux, donate a bit to the projects you use and buy a new plasma or something shiny for the lady.
SPLA? Isn't that for service providers? My friends and I use the hosted services for ourselves (games, email and web), though of course our web sites are publicly viewable by all; but I think that hardly qualifies as "providing a service"?
Unfortunately, staying with Linux would make it such that I would not be able to use my DevExpress components, which is my reason for considering Windows Server in the first place. .NET may be partially supported by Mono, but not fully, and DevExpress makes use of certain features of .NET that aren't (at least as yet) supported by Mono.
We also already own our own dedicated server, so are only looking for a suitable OS.
Still, your reply is appreciated.