www.paessler.com

INTRODUCTION

Paessler's Webserver Stress Tool is a very comprehensive program designed to give you detailed feedback about how your webserver is performing under many different circumstances. In the fast paced E-Business world we live in today, nobody can afford downtime, so tools that effectively avoid downtime are worth their weight in gold. Paessler's software is full of features, options and variables that can adapt to any application, and stress any webserver.

INSTALLATION & SETUP

Paessler's software installed without any problems as per usual. As always there are the options for icons on the desktop, or in the quicklaunch bar. The software was installed successfully on both Intel and AMD platforms without any problems. A proper uninstaller is also included with this software, and makes sure your registry isn't clogged with useless keys should you ever need to uninstall the software. There is no adware or spyware included with the software, which almost seems rare these days. In addition the website was very easy to navigate and there were no annoying redirects resulting in a very smooth acquisition of the software. It should also be noted that your purchase options are covered when you start the program, and like all of Paessler's software, the price is right.

INTERFACE & EASE OF USE

For a program with so many complex and precise options, the Webserver Stress Tool is very easy to use. All of your actions are listed across the top, and test setup, settings and output options are all listed along the left hand side. At first all of the options can seem a little bit overwhelming, but this tool has it ALL covered. If one were to become confused when using this tool, there is a very comprehensive help system ready to walk you through the process. Upon completing the test you are given very detailed reports on the results of the test, in both textual and graphical formats. The graphs are excellent and really give you a good idea of what your server can handle, and what is going to cause problems. Additionally the software can be set to output its data to Microsoft Word, or a HTML file. All of these options are very apparent even the first time you run the software, and everything is right there in front of you, something I have noticed is very consistent with Paessler's software. What makes this software shine in the ease of use category is the fact that everything is explained in the help documentation. A user who does not even know what a HTTP request entails can learn how to interpret the graphical data and make decisions based upon it. In addition the reports that the program generates include short explanation of some of the terms used,

FUNCTIONALITY

The Webserver Stress Tool does its work by simulating visitors to a website, and recording statistics from these simulated visitors. There are settings to control how many visitors to simulate, how many requests they will be making, and everything else a real site visitor might require. Cookies can be simulated and considered in the results, and although the trial version only supports five simulated users, I managed to get some useful feedback. For example, in the graphs section there is an option for "Spectrum of Click Times". To be quite honest, that really does not tell me much, but right under that heading is a quick explanation "How many users waited for what time under what load to complete a click". This graph alone will give anyone a good explanation of how their server is functioning, and how well or poorly their clients are being served.

The options for testing are endless and every possible combination of events is possible with Webserver Stress Tool. As an added bonus there are some other functions that allow more versatile testing, such as the timer function, which could allow a administrator to test the server during a peak time when he is not available. Support for tokens is also included, something not found in other testing tools.

With the five user trial version of the program, it was not realistically possible to test the memory footprint and system load this program can create. According to the documentation it can use 50-200kb of ram per simulated user, so with a decent system simulation high numbers of users should not be a problem.

CONCLUSION

Another excellent piece of software from Paessler. With the extremely detailed output this program provides there is nothing that comes close. There are many other methods of testing a webserver's performance, but currently nothing that displays so many statistics in an easy to understand manner. When it comes to return on investment this is one example of a no loss situation, the data this program produces, in the right hands could make the difference between making it or breaking it.

PROS: a. Easy to interpret results. b. Very useful results. CONS: a. Trial version very limited