The performance of an E-commerce application relies on various aspects. Apart from the

Transcription

1 ABSTRACT The performance of an E-commerce application relies on various aspects. Apart from the quality of the E-commerce application itself, the factors which determine the performance of an E-commerce appplication are, system configuration, client configuration, network configuration, system load and database load. Performance testing of E-commerce applications is the discipline concerned with determining and reporting the current performance of an E-commerce application under various parameters. Performance testing covers various types of testing to provide information on the quality of the E-commerce application under test with regard to speed, scalability and stability characteristics. This research focuses only on the load testing of web servers which host E-commerce applications, mainly due to time and resource limitations. A study was done on existing web load test tools and OpenWebLoad was found suitable for this research because of its simplicity and also because it is an open source tool and it is free. Some simple forms were developed to set the test parameters and run the test. Additional features such as viewing of log information of tests and comparing the web servers which has been tested has been incorporated into OpenWebLoad. The new comparison feature of the tool would enable a developer to do a simple and straight forward real time load test on the web servers which is to host their E-commerce applications. A simulation of the real-life use of an E-commerce application is performed to assess how the application will work under actual conditions of use. The result of the test shows the amount of requests, response time and transactions per second of the web servers under various loads. As this is only a prototype tool, the scalability results of only two web servers can be compared. i

2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Firstly I would like to thank God for making me finish my prolonged dissertation. I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Assoc. Prof. Raja Noor Ainon Zabariah Raja Zainal Abidin, whose expertise, understanding, and patience, added considerably to my graduate experience. I would also like to thank my family for the support they have provided me throughout my entire life and in particular, I must acknowledge my husband Mr. Kishor Kumar, my father Mr.Thirumalai, mother Mrs.Rajamani and mother in law Mdm. Muthulakshmi, without whose love, encouragement and editing assistance, I would not have finished this dissertation. Lastly I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my wonderful kids Saillesh, Sharannya and to my, to be born baby who have been my inspiration to finish this dissertation amidst all the obstacles. ii

3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF FIGURES vii LIST OF TABLES viii CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION RESEARCH MOTIVATION RESEARCH OBJECTIVE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY DATA GATHERING AND ANALYSIS DESIGN DEVELOPMENT EVALUATION SIGNIFICANCE OF RESEARCH SCOPE OF STUDY ORGANIZATION OF THE DISSERTATION 7 CHAPTER 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW E-COMMERCE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WEB SITE AND AN E-COMMERCE SITE IMPORTANCE OF E-COMMERCE 12 iii

4 2.3 UNDERSTANDING THE ARCHITECTURE OF E-COMMERCE APPLICATIONS MULTI-TIERED ARCHITECTURE PERFORMANCE TESTING FOR E-COMMERCE APPLICATION LOAD AND SCALABILITY TESTING STRESS TESTING TEST PLAN FOR PERFORMANCE TESTING PERFORMANCE TESTING TOOL FOR E-COMMERCE APPLICATIONS WEB SERVER TESTING WEB HOSTING SELECTION CONCLUSION 36 CHAPTER 3 : REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION INTRODUCTION LOAD TESTING TOOL FOR WEB SERVERS HOSTING E-COMMERCE APPLICATIONS EXISTING WEB SERVER LOAD TEST TOOLS OPENSTA OPENWEBLOAD WAPT CONCLUSION REQUIREMENTS FOR THE NEW TOOL LOAD SIMULATION REAL TIME TEST WEB SERVER RESPONSE TIME AND TRANSACTIONS RECORD INTO DATABASE COMPARE TWO WEB SERVERS DISPLAY LOG DISPLAY GRAPH REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION 53 iv

5 3.4.1 FUNCTIONAL SPECIFICATION TEST LOAD LOG INFORMATION ANALYSIS GRAPH NON FUNCTIONAL SPECIFICATION 60 CHAPTER 4 : SYSTEM DESIGN LOAD TEST DESIGN OPENWEBLOAD GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE DESIGN DATABASE DESIGN 71 CHAPTER 5 : IMPLEMENTATION IMPLEMENTATION LANGUAGE IMPLEMENTATION OF WEB LOAD TEST TOOL TEST LOAD INTERGRATION OF THE NEW FEATURES WITH OPENWEBLOAD LOG INFO ANALYSIS GRAPH 83 CHAPTER 6 : TESTING AND EVALUATION SYSTEM TESTING AND VALIDATION TEST RESULTS GLOBAT.COM MAYBANK2U.COM.MY EXABYTES.COM.MY MERCUMAYA.NET HILEYTECH.COM WEBHOSTING.COM.MY 97 v

6 COMPARISON OF ALL THE WEBSITES TESTED CONCLUSION USER ACCEPTANCE USER ACCEPTANCE TEST STATISTIC DESCRIPTION OF THE RESULT OBJECTIVES AND RESULT 108 CHAPTER 7 : CONCLUSION AND FUTURE FRAMEWORK CONTRIBUTIONS CRITICAL EVALUATION OF METHODS FUTURE FRAMEWORK 111 APPENDIX A 113 APPENDIX B 121 REFERENCES 128 vi

7 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Title Page 2.1 Architecture of E-commerce Application Multi-tiered architecture of an E-commerce application User interface for OpenWebLoad Client web server request and response Data flow diagram for test load module Use case diagram for Test Load component Typical internet environment Use case diagram for Log Information component Use case diagram for Analysis Graph component Top level components in OpenWebLoad GUI design for test load module GUI design for log information module GUI design for log information module WebLoad form Parameters form VB code for test load module Log form Load graph form TTPS for globat.com Average response time for globat.com TTPS for maybank2u.com.my Average response time for maybank2u.com.my TTPS for exabytes.com.my Average response time for exabytes.com.my TTPS for mercumaya.net Average response time for mercumaya.net TTPS for hileytech.com Average response time for hileytech.com TTPS for webhosting.com.my Average response time for webhosting.com.my Comparison of TTPS Comparison of Average response time Users answer on the user friendliness of the tool Users answer on the effectiveness of the tool WebLoad form Parameters form Log form Load graph form 120 vii

8 LIST OF TABLES Table Title Page 3.1 Comparison of opensta, OpenWebLoad and WAPT List of fields for table history Recommended duration for the amount of users Configuration of machine used for the testing Average TTPS and Average response time for globat.com Average TTPS and Average response time for maybank2u.com.my Average TTPS and Average response time for exabytes. com.my Average TTPS and Average response time for mercumaya.net Average TTPS and Average response time for hileytech.com Average TTPS and Average response time for webhosting.com.my Users suggestion to improve the tool Recommended duration for the amount of users 117 viii