Define service level agreements

This topic describes how to define service level agreements (SLAs).

In this topic:

Flow

You can define SLAs in Controller or Analysis. The SLAs can measure scenario goals over time intervals, or over a whole scenario run. For details, see Service level agreements overview.

Tip: For a use-case scenario related to this task, see Define service level agreements - use-case scenario.

To define SLAs:

  1. Prerequisites

    If you are defining an SLA for Transaction Response Time, your scenario must include a script that contains at least one transaction.

  2. Run through the SLA wizard

    For user interface details, see the Service Level Agreement wizard.

    Open the wizard in one of the following ways:

    • Analysis:Tools menu > Configure SLA Rules > Service Level Agreement window > New button

    • Controller:Design tab > Service Level Agreement window > New button

    1. Select a measurement for the SLA.

    2. If you are defining an SLA for Transaction Response Time (Percentile, Average, or APDEX), select the transactions to include in your goal.

    3. If you are defining an SLA for Errors per Second, you can optionally set load criteria. The available criteria are Running Vusers, Throughput, and Hits per Second. For each of these criteria, you define a range for which the values are evaluated.

    4. Set thresholds for the measurements.

      • If Transaction Response Time (Average) or Errors per Second exceed the defined thresholds, Analysis displays a Failed SLA status.

      • If Transaction Response Time (Percentile), Total Hits per run, Average Hits (hits/second) per run, Total Throughput (bytes) per run, or Average Throughput (bytes/second) per run are lower than the defined threshold, Analysis displays a Failed SLA status.

      • For Passed Transactions Ratio, if the percentage of passed transactions is lower than the defined percentage threshold (between 0 to 100), Analysis displays a Failed SLA status.
      • Using the Transaction Response Time (APDEX) thresholds, Analysis produces APDEX scores.

  3. Define a tracking period - optional

    For measurements whose SLA statuses are determined over time intervals, you can define the frequency of the time intervals also known as the tracking period. For details, see Tracking period.

    You define the Tracking period in the Advanced Options area. For details, see the Advanced Options dialog box (SLA).

  4. View results

    When analyzing your scenario run, Analysis compares the data collected from the scenario run against the SLA settings, and determines SLA statuses and APDEX scores. These are displayed in the Statistics section of the default Summary Report.

    You can edit the SLA settings after the scenario run—the Statistics section is updated to reflect the new settings.

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Service Level Agreement pane

This pane lists all the service level agreements (SLAs) defined for the scenario.

To access, select:

  • Analysis:Tools menu > Configure SLA Rules > Service Level Agreement

  • Controller:Design tab

User interface elements are described below:

Toolbar button Function

New

Starts the Service Level Agreement wizard where you can define new goals for the load test scenario.

Details

Opens the Goal Details dialog box which displays the thresholds that were set for the selected SLA.

If you defined load criteria as part of your SLA, the threshold values are displayed per the defined load value ranges.

Edit

Opens the Service Level Agreement wizard where you can modify the goals defined in the SLA.

Delete

Deletes the selected SLA.

Advanced

Opens the Advanced Options dialog box where you can adjust the tracking period for measurements that are evaluated per time interval over a timeline.

For more information, see Tracking period.

For details, see Advanced Options dialog box (SLA).

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See also: