Is a client robot an OS thread?

[Dmitry Kurochkin]

Kevin Xie1 <Kevin_Xie1 at symantec.com> writes:

> Thanks for your quick response, Dmitry.
>
> However, I don't understand how a single thread can simulate multiple
> concurrent "users" submitting request to web servers. Is it that the
> single thread iterates all open connections one by one (submitting a
> request or processing response one at a time)?

Sort of, though details are more complex than that.  If you are
interested, search for I/O multiplexing.

> bound by CPU since just 1 core is used at a time, or by slow
> connections ..., do I miss something here, or my understanding is
> fundamentally wrong?
>

The fact that a single polygraph process can use only a single core may
be a limitation indeed.  But moving each simulated agent to a separate
OS thread is not the solution.

You can run multiple Polygraph client or server processes on a single
system.  But that makes it harder to manage the test and usually
requires some auxiliary scripts to start all processes.

It would be nice to have SMP support in Polygraph and we have some ideas
about it.  But so far there has not been enough interest in such
project.  Patches or sponsorships are welcome.

In any case, please do not make conclusions about Polygraph performance
from the fact that it is single-threaded.  Polygraph is successfully
used for high performance tests in 10Gbit networks (though it may
require multiple Polygraph processes and/or systems).

Regards,
  Dmitry

> Appreciated for any light shed!
>
> Kevin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dmitry Kurochkin [mailto:dmitry.kurochkin at measurement-factory.com] 
> Sent: May-03-12 3:19 PM
> To: Kevin Xie1
> Cc: users at web-polygraph.org
> Subject: Re: Is a client robot an OS thread?
>
> Hi Kevin.
>
> Kevin Xie1 <Kevin_Xie1 at symantec.com> writes:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Is a client robot a real OS thread? I'm using web polygrah in Linux,
>> but I doesn't see multiple threads in the OS during a test with 500
>> robots.
>>
>
> Polygraph client and server processes are single-threaded.  All Robot
> and Server agents are running in a single thread.
>
> Regards,
>   Dmitry
>
>> Thanks,
>> Kevin
>> _______________________________________________
>> Users mailing list
>> Users at web-polygraph.org
>> http://www.web-polygraph.org/mailman/listinfo/users