This section provides best practices and instructions for designing a performance test.
Before you begin
Before you start designing a performance test, we recommend you create scripts, topologies, monitor profiles, and enable diagnostics and virtualized services (as required).
For details, see Create test assets.
Design a performance test - workflow
This task describes how to design a performance test from the Performance Test Designer.
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Prerequisites
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Make sure the relevant scripts and tests have been uploaded and saved to Performance Center. You can use VuGen scripts as well as tests or scripts created in JMeter, UFT, LeanFT, NUnit, JUnit, or Selenium.
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Make sure that there is at least one Controller, one load generator, and one data processor in the host pool of your project (under Resources, select Hosts). If not, contact your administrator to add them.
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From the Performance Center navigation toolbar, click
and select Create New Test. Define the test, assign it to a test set, and select a workload as described in Create a test. -
Define a workload for the test
Defining a workload involves creating Vuser groups, distributing Vusers among the Vuser groups, assigning hosts to the Vuser groups, and defining a run schedule for the test. For task details, see Define a performance test workload.
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Integrate virtualized services - optional
Configure and integrate virtualized services into the performance test. For task details, see Add virtualized services to performance tests.
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Select or create monitor profiles to monitor the test - optional
In the Performance Center Designer's Monitors tab, click Add Monitor Profile or Add Monitor OFW. The respective tree opens on the right.
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To select existing profiles or monitor-over-firewall agents, select the monitors to add to the test, and click Add selected monitors
. Note: Before you can select monitors for a test, you must configure monitor machines and create monitor profiles. For details, see Create and configure monitor profiles.
Similarly, you must define monitor-over-firewall agents in the system before you can select them to monitor a test.
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To create a new monitor profile or monitor-over-firewall agent, click
Create Monitor or 
Create Monitor OFW. For a monitor profile: In the Create Monitor Profile dialog box, enter a name and description, and select a folder for storing the profile. Click OK, and create a new monitor profile as described in Create and configure monitor profiles.
For a monitor-over-firewall agent: In the Create Monitor Over Firewall dialog box, enter a name, the machine key, and select a folder for storing the profile and the MI Listener with which the monitor is to connect. Click OK.
After you have created new monitor profiles or monitor-over-firewall agents, select the monitors to add to the test, and click Add selected monitors/monitors over firewall
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For user interface details, see Performance Test Designer > Monitors.
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Select a topology for the test - optional
Note: Before you can select a topology for a test, you must design the topology. To design topologies, see How to design topologies.
In the Performance Center Designer's Topology tab, click Select Topology and select a topology for the test. For user interface details, see Performance Test Designer > Topology.
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Enable and configure J2EE/.NET diagnostics - optional
Enable and configure diagnostic modules to collect J2EE/.NET diagnostics data from the test run. For details, see Diagnostics.
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Define service level agreements for the test - optional
Define service level agreements to measure performance metrics against performance goals. For details, see Define service level agreements.
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When you save the test, it goes through a validation process. The test is valid only if it contains no errors. For details, see Test Validation Results dialog box.
Note: If you make changes to the test, and the test is linked to a timeslot, the timeslot is updated with these changes automatically.
