DynaTrace Support in Web Performance Load Tester 5.4
DynaTrace (now known as “Compuware APM for Enterprise Tiers”) is a tool to analyze performance as requests pass from the front-end webserver back to various application servers, database servers, and web services. It’s marketed as a way to obtain deep insight into performance problems without the overhead and inconvenience of other more intrusive profiling tools. During a load test, DynaTrace works best if requests are annotated with metadata. We added a feature to emit DynaTrace-compatible metadata to Load Tester 5.4.
DynaTrace support is a premium feature sold separately from Load Tester PRO or our other offerings, but you can experiment with it using Load Tester’s demo mode. Start by choosing the “Enable dynaTrace” checkbox in the “Testcase Properties” dialog box, found by right clicking on a testcase or under the “options” menu inside the testcase editor.
When enabled, we emit the following pieces of information under the “x-dynaTrace” header:
- SN = Testcase name, as defined in Load Tester’s Navigator View.
- VU = A user-provided value representing the identity of the virtual user.
- ID = A ID number uniquely generated as each HTTP request is sent over the wire.
- TE = Load test name, as defined the Load Tester’s Navigator View.
- SI = The string, “WebPerformanceLoadTester” identifying the Load Tester product (as opposed to some other source of traffic).
- NA = The path of the request.
You will be able to see these values in the Headers View after running a replay or in the content of any error that gets returned during a load test. More importantly, the dynaTrace tools recognize these values and incorporate them into their own performance analysis.