Swiss Federal Office for Informatics Tests SAP-Portals

Company Profile

The Federal Office for Informatics and Telecommunication (BIT, Bundesamt für Informatik und Telekommunikation) is the nationwide competence center for information technology of Switzerland. BIT employs more than 500 individuals at five locations, working toward efficient operations of communication and information applications and services for the federal administration and individual Swiss provinces There are four strategic business areas BIT manages – IT consulting, IT solutions, IT infrastructure and IT education. BIT provides Internet, SAP, operative security and telecommunication services. The department, CCSAP (Competence Center SAP), manages SAP business solutions and has successfully used Webserver Stress Tool since March 2005.

Challenge

Comprised of about 100 employees, the CCSAP department supervises the web-based business applications and its infrastructure, among other duties. These applications are mostly embedded into the SAP Enterprise Portal providing anonymous and authenticated intranet users with central access to information and functions concerning personnel, logistics and finances. Response time is crucial, since users of host applications are used to quick responses, making implementing portal applications a high priority. The CCSAP needed a software testing solution that could simulate and test a huge server load within the multifaceted client network and server infrastructure of the federal administration, including Windows, Unix, Linux and host applications.

Software Requirements:

• Realistic stress test of Web applications
• Simulation from the user’s point of view
• Clear analysis
• Short-time vocational adjustment
• Intuitive user guidance

Solution

After testing many software products, CCSAP finally opted for Webserver Stress Tool (WST) from Paessler. “Compared to some competitive products that we tested, WST meets our functionality demands much better. It works without the necessity of programming, is easy to use and has a reasonable price-performance ratio,” says Manuel Schaffner, project manager with CCSAP.

In practice, the CCSAP records the URLs (all requests including Mimes) with an http-tracer and converts the log into the WST da2-format. Therefore, one WST-entity per user scenario is applied and the stress tests are combined with performance monitoring (processor, RAM, disc, network) on the test client and servers. That data can easily be merged and compared in Microsoft Excel. First, all tests are carried out from the user’s perspective, then they are followed by an exact fault analysis.

Working with WST, the CCSAP first checked out a variety of possible settings for simulation (chance, scaling, click delay, etc.) in order to get a feeling for influencing variables and plausibility. This enabled CCSAP to identify coherences of user quantity, user settings, transactions, clicks, page visits as well as requests and hits.

Manuel Schaffner advises to first define clear aims for the load tests (such as response time requirements), and then derive out of it the required data, such as averaged number of requests, data quantity and needed time per click, number of requests per time unit on the server, or the actual response time. Finally, the CCSAP decides on the method of testing (capacity/performance, steadiness/load, regression, stress/peak/ramp, etc.). “Doing this is important to record the architecture (from client to database) and the configuration of all involved components (hard and software) and to consider background loads (other data traffic within the network) and initial situations (e.g. cache),” says Schaffner.

Customer Benefit

Using Webserver Stress Tool, the CCSAP team increasingly realized that not only are functionality and usability tests important with web applications, response time is also a crucial factor for the user’s acceptance of centralized applications. “With Webserver Stress Tool, we were able to optimize the infrastructure architecture and the application configuration regarding the performance and get a picture of the application capacity. We can also concentrate on the essential aspects of load tests, such as structured test planning or a meaningful evaluation.”

When asked about the most important features and functions of Webserver Stress Tool, Schaffner answers, “We especially like the intuitive handling as well as the multifaceted significant graphics and the data export. Also, the test client can flexibly be positioned within the network to detect bottlenecks.”