Team Test and the Load Test Agent
A customer recently asked:
how many users can I simulate using a single copy of Team Edition for Testers?
While you can do some ad-hoc testing using a desktop install of
Team Edition for Testers or
Team Suite, if you want to simulate large numbers of users, you need to install the
Load Test Agent and
Load Test Controller.
These are standalone components designed to run on a farm of machines.
You connect to and control them with Visual Studio, via the Test,
Administer Test Controllers menu:
Microsoft provides
some rules of thumb
for the number of users you can simulate using the agent and
controller, which I have summarized and grouped here. The recommended
machine specs are are provided in the order of CPU speed, memory, and
disk space, respectively.
for 1-2 projects, 5-20 users:
|
agent
|
600 MHz
|
256 MB
|
1 GB
|
|
controller
|
600 MHz
|
256 MB
|
1 GB
|
|
both
|
600 MHz
|
512 MB
|
1 GB
|
for 2-20 projects, 20-100 users:
|
agent
|
2.0 GHz
|
512 MB
|
5 GB
|
|
controller
|
1.0 GHz
|
512 MB
|
8 GB
|
|
both
|
2.0 GHz
|
1 GB
|
8 GB
|
for 20+ projects, 100-250 users:
|
agent
|
2.6 GHz
|
2 GB
|
5 GB
|
|
controller
|
2.0 GHz
|
1 GB
|
40 GB
|
|
both
|
2.6 GHz
|
2 GB
|
40 GB
|
for 50+ projects, 250-500 users:
|
agent
|
2.8 GHz dual
|
2 GB
|
8 GB
|
|
controller
|
2.6 GHz
|
1 GB
|
48 GB
|
|
both
|
2.8 GHz dual
|
2 GB
|
48 GB
|
Ed Glas has an outstanding, highly detailed overview of the all different things you need to consider when setting up a farm of load agents.
One frequent point of confusion is that the Team Test Load Agent is licensed seperately. If you want to set up a farm of five machines running the Load Agent, you need five licenses. And this license is not cheap, as you can see on the Team System licensing page: it's currently $5,089 per!