Running a user group at a remote location

You can run a user group at a remote location (also called an agent computer), rather than on your local computer, to prevent your workbench activity from affecting the ability to apply load.

Before you begin

Before you run a user group at a remote location, verify that:

Test Performance Agent is installed on the remote computer. The agent is configured and connected to the Test Performance workbench.
Firewall is disabled on the workbench computer or configured to allow incoming connections on the port number 7080.
A reasonable number of virtual users will run at the remote location. When you assign a user group to a remote location, do not overload the remote computer (agent). If you exceed the number of virtual users that the remote computer can run, the performance measurements of the server will be skewed because they will be affected by the performance of the computer. The test results will reflect the load of the computer more than the load of the server. For best results on a computer with a 1 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM, do not exceed 1000 concurrent virtual users.

About this task

Generally, you should run user groups at a remote locations. You must run a user group at a remote location in these cases:

When a large number of virtual users are running and the local computer does not have enough processor or memory resources to support this load. You can conserve resources by running the users on different locations, so that fewer users run on each computer.
When a test requires specific client libraries or software. The user group that contains this test must run on a computer that has the libraries or software installed.

Procedure

In the Test Navigator, browse to the schedule and double-click it.
The schedule opens.
In the schedule, click the user group that you want to run on a different computer.
In the Schedule Element Details area, click Run this group on the following locations.
To declare a remote location:
1. Click Add > Add New.
  The Add New wizard opens. On the first page of the wizard, you can specify general properties for the remote location.
2. In Hostname, type the IP address or the fully qualified host name of the remote computer.
3. In Name, type a descriptive name for the remote computer.
4. In Deployment Directory, enter a fully qualified pathname of the directory, which is in the remote computer to store the test assets.
  
  Note: The environment variables such as %TEMP% are not supported in the Deployment Directory field.
5. In Operating System, select the operating system of the remote computer, and then click Next.
6. Specify the IP aliasing properties for this location. To make it appear as though each virtual user has its own IP address, click Enable IP Aliasing.
7. To use IP addresses from all network interfaces at the remote location, click Use IP addresses from all network interfaces.
8. To use addresses from a subset of network interfaces, click Only use IP addresses from the following network interfaces.
  
  Tip: Click Add to add the name of an interface and Edit to change the interface name. Specify network interfaces separated by commas, for example, eth0, eth1. If you do not use this form, the connection attempt fails.
9. Click Next. On the third page of this wizard, you can specify file locations.
10. In File name, type the name of the file to contain information about this computer, and then click Next.
  
  Note: The data stored in the file includes information such as the host name and deployment directory. You can change this information later by opening the Test Navigator and double-clicking the file.
To add an already declared location:
1. Click Add > Add Existing.
2. In the Select Location window, select the computer on which the user group will run, and then click OK.