The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is one the foundations of the modern Internet. Because HTTP servers may be subject to unexpected periods of high load, developers use HTTP benchmarking utilities to simulate the load generated by users. However, many of these tools do not report performance details at a per-client level, which deprives developers of crucial insights into a server's performance capabilities.
In this work, we present ink, an HTTP benchmarking tool that enables developers to better understand server performance. ink provides developers with a way of visualizing the level of service that each individual client receives. It does this by recording a trace of events for each individual simulated client. We also present a GUI that enables users to explore and visualizing the data that is generated by an HTTP benchmark. Lastly, we present a method for running HTTP benchmarks that uses a set of distributed machines to scale up the achievable load on the benchmarked server.
We evaluate ink by performing a series of case studies to show that ink is both performant and useful. We validate ink's load generation abilities within the context of a single machine and when using a set of distributed machines. ink is shown to be capable of simulating hundreds of thousands of HTTP clients and presenting per-client results through the ink GUI. We also perform a set of HTTP benchmarks where ink is able to highlight performance issues and differences between server implementations. We compare servers like NGINX and Apache and highlight their differences using ink. / Master of Science / The World Wide Web (WWW) uses the Hypertext Transfer Protocol to send web content such as HTML pages or video to users. The servers providing this content are called HTTP servers. Sometimes, the performance of these HTTP servers is compromised because a large number of users requests documents at the same time. To prepare for this, server maintainers test how many simultaneous users a server can handle by using benchmarking utilities. These benchmarking utilities work by simulating a set of clients. Currently, these tools focus only on the amount of requests that a server can process per second. Unfortunately, this coarse-grained metric can hide important information, such as the level of service that individual clients received.
In this work, we present ink, an HTTP benchmarking utility we developed that focuses on reporting information for each simulated client. Reporting data in this way allows for the developer to see how well each client was served during the benchmark. We achieve this by constructing data visualizations that include a set of client timelines. Each of these timelines represents the service that one client received.
We evaluated ink through a series of case studies. These focus on the performance of the utility and the usefulness of the visualizations produced by ink. Additionally, we deployed ink in Virginia Tech's Computer Systems course. The students were able to use the tool and took a survey pertaining to their experience with the tool.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/98918 |
| Date | 15 June 2020 |
| Creators | Phelps, Andrew Jacob |
| Contributors | Computer Science, Back, Godmar V., Gracanin, Denis, Butt, Ali R. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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