Test tools

To facilitate the placement and management of simulated loads on an HP SBC server, HP used Terminal Services Scalability Planning Tools (TSScaling), a suite of tools developed by Microsoft to help organizations with Microsoft Windows® Server 2003 Terminal Server capacity planning.

Table 1 describes these tools.

Table 1. Components of TSScaling

Component

 

Description

 

 

 

Automation tools

Robosrv.exe

Drives the server-side of the load simulation

 

 

 

 

Robocli.exe

Helps drive the client-side of the load simulation

 

 

 

Test tools

Qidle.exe

Determines if any scripts have failed and require

 

 

operator intervention

 

 

 

 

Tbscript.exe

A script interpreter that helps drive the client-side load

 

 

simulation

 

 

 

Help files

TBScript.doc

Terminal Server bench scripting documentation

 

 

 

 

TSScalingSetup.doc

A scalability test environment set-up guide

 

 

 

 

TSScalingTesting.doc

A testing guide

 

 

 

More information

•Roboserver (Robosrv.exe) and Roboclient (Robocli.exe): Terminal Server capacity planning

•TSScaling: Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server Capacity and Scaling

User profiles

To simulate typical workloads in this environment, HP used scripts based on the Heavy, Medium, and Light User profiles described in Table 2.

Table 2. User profiles incorporated into the test scripts

User class

Activities

 

 

Heavy User

Heavy Users (also known as Structured Task Workers) tend to open multiple applications

 

simultaneously and remain active for long periods. Heavy Users often leave applications open

 

when not in use.

 

 

Medium User

Medium Users (also known as Knowledge Workers) are defined as users who gather, add value

 

to, and communicate information in a decision-support process. Cost of downtime is variable but

 

highly visible. These resources are driven by projects and ad-hoc needs towards flexible tasks.

 

These workers make their own decisions on what to work on and how to accomplish the task.

 

Sample tasks include: marketing, project management, sales, desktop publishing, decision

 

support, data mining, financial analysis, executive and supervisory management, design, and

 

authoring.

 

 

Light User

Light Users (also known as Data Entry Workers) input data into computer systems. Activities

 

include transcription, typing, order entry, clerical work and manufacturing.

 

 

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