Integrate Network Virtualization

This section describes how Micro Focus Network Virtualization (NV) integrates with LoadRunner Enterprise to help you test point-to-point performance of network-deployed products under real-world conditions.

Note: Network Virtualization for LoadRunner no longer requires a license, and is provided for free as part of LoadRunner Enterprise. For installation instructions, see the LoadRunner Enterprise Installation Guide.

Network Virtualization overview

By incorporating Network Virtualization into your scenario, you can create more meaningful results by configuring several load generators or groups of Vusers with a unique set of network effects, depending on the route or location.

Example: You could define a location from New York to London and another one from Los Angeles to New York. As a result of this, your scenario performs the test in a more realistic environment that better represents the actual deployment of your application.

After running a performance test, view the results in the View the Performance Test Run page (online screen) or in LoadRunner Analysis (see the LoadRunner Professional Help Center).

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Exclude machines from Network Virtualization

In some situations, you may need to exclude certain machines that may affect the virtualization emulation, from the network virtualization. A typical example is a software update server.

To exclude a machine, you configure the IP Filter settings of your network virtualization software. When you exclude a machine, their network effects will not be included in the network virtualization results.

Which machines should you exclude? Any machine that if emulated, may affect the results of the actual scenario during its run, (for example, the Controller) should be excluded.

The following machines are excluded by default:

  • The Diagnostics Commander server

  • The LoadRunner Enterprise server

  • A machine running SiteScope (configured to monitor LoadRunner Enterprise servers and hosts)

The following are situations to consider excluding a machine from network virtualization:

  • In a Multi-protocol performance test that includes a web server and a database server; where information from the database server is not required as a part of the performance test. In such a case, you would exclude the database server.

  • Deployment and software upgrade servers.

  • Servers that run and store scripts on a shared network drive.

  • MI Listener.

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View Network Virtualization graphs

Network Virtualization starts and stops automatically as you start and stop the performance test. Network Virtualization monitors are assigned automatically when the performance test run starts and metrics are automatically collected during the performance test run.

You can view the network virtualization metrics during the performance test run in the Performance Test Run page. For details on the Performance Test Run page, see View the Performance Test Run page (online screen).

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NV Insights Report

By incorporating NV Insights into your scenario, you can create a comprehensive network analysis report that provides information about how your application performs over various types of networks (virtual locations). This standalone HTML report covers all of the workload groups in a single report. For more details, see NV Insights report.

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Integrate Network Virtualization into a performance test

This section describes how to integrate Network Virtualization into your performance test and how to view the metrics in Analysis.

  1. Prerequisites

    • Make sure that you have Network Virtualization installed on the LoadRunner Enterprise server, the load generators, and the Controller machine.

      Note: The LoadRunner Enterprise setup wizard prompts you to install NV at the conclusion of the installation. If you did not install the NV components as part of the LoadRunner Enterprise installation, you can run the NV installations manually at any time.

      The installation files are located in the <LoadRunner Enterprise installation directory>\Additional Components\Network Virtualization folder.

      For details on installing Network Virtualization, see the Network Virtualization for LoadRunner Help.

    • Make sure that you have a properly designed performance test. For details, see Define test workloads.

  2. Open Network Virtualization

    1. In the Performance Test Designer window, click Groups & Workload. For user interface details, see Groups and Workload tab (Performance Test Designer).

    2. Click . The Virtual Location Editor dialog box opens. For user interface details, see Virtual Location Editor dialog box.

  3. Enable Network Virtualization and choose a virtualization method

    1. In the Virtual Location Editor dialog box, set the Virtual Location Mode to On.

    2. Select Per Group or Per Load Generator.

      Use the default Per Group to perform network virtualization per Vuser group. This option enables you to emulate multiple virtual locations on the same load generator. It makes it easier to switch between load generators used in your performance test.

      Use Per Load Generator to perform network virtualization per load generator, where each machine can only emulate a single location.

  4. Define global settings

    1. Click Common Settings. Opens the Virtual Location Test Level Settings page, enabling you to apply the settings to all virtual locations that are included in the test. For details, see Network Virtualization for LoadRunner Help.

    2. In Enable Packet Capture, define packet capture settings.

    3. In Exclude these IP's, specify any machines that you may want to exclude from network virtualization for all locations. For details on which machines to exclude, see Exclude machines from Network Virtualization.

  5. Add virtual locations

    1. In the Virtual Location Editor dialog box, click the New Virtual Location button. Type a location name.

      Use the ANSI standard format. You cannot use the following characters: \ / : “ ? ‘ < > | * % ^ , ! { } ( ) ; = #

    2. Click OK. The Select Virtual Location Definition Method page opens, enabling you to configure the virtual location.

  6. For network virtualization per Group - Define the settings for each group

    1. In the Performance Test Designer window click Groups & Workload, under the Virtual Location column, click the Select virtual location link. The Virtual Location dialog box opens.

    2. Select a virtual location.

  7. Define the load generator settings

    1. In Performance Test Designer window click Groups & Workload. On the Groups pane toolbar, click Assign LG. The Assign Load Generators dialog box opens. For user interface details, see Assign Load Generators to Groups dialog box.

    2. In the Groups column, select the Vuser groups to use in the test.

    3. In the Load Generators column, select one or more load generators from the Specific or Automatch tabs.

      Note: Network Virtualization is not supported when using elastic hosts.

      To assign additional automatch load generators, click , enter the number of load generators in the adjacent box, and click Add.

      To define settings for automatch load generators, click the Properties link to open the Load Generator Management dialog box. Select the load generators for which you want to define the same settings, and select the location and host attributes. For user interface details, see Load Generator Management dialog box.

    4. After you have selected the load generators to assign to the groups, click Assign, and then click OK.

    5. In the Default Virtual Location column, click the Select virtual location link for each selected load generator. The Select Virtual Location dialog box opens. Select a virtual location.

  8. Run the performance test

    Run the test to check its performance. For more details on running a performance test, see Run performance tests.

  9. View the graphs

    Network virtualization metrics are automatically collected during the performance test run. After running a performance test, view the results in the View the Performance Test Run page (online screen) or in LoadRunner Analysis (see the LoadRunner Professional Help Center).

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Notes and limitations

This section describes notes and limitations for running Vusers with Network Virtualization.

  • Network Virtualization is not supported when using elastic hosts.

  • Network Virtualization configured with Load Generator emulation mode is not supported with IP Spoofing.

  • The bandwidth utilization measurement is represented in the graphs only when the bandwidth is configured as Shared Bandwidth. If the bandwidth is configured as Individual Bandwidth, bandwidth utilization data does not appear.

  • You cannot run Network Virtualization while using a Goal-Oriented schedule.

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See also: