Manage cloud hosts

This section describes how to define, manage, and maintain cloud hosts from the Cloud Management page.

Cloud hosts overview

Load generators can be hosted on local machines or in a cloud account. To host a load generator on the cloud, you must have access to a cloud account that will host the load generator, and your cloud account must be set up for provisioning load generators.

Performance Center supports Amazon EC2 accounts only.

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Benefits of using cloud hosts

By using cloud hosts in Performance Center, you can:

  • Provision testing hosts only when you need them.

  • Manage cloud provisioning on a per-project basis, with each project having access only to the cloud resources it needs.

  • Allow QA testers to provision pre-approved testing hosts without the need for direct access to your cloud accounts.

  • Regulate cloud host usage by assigning credits to projects.

  • View cloud host usage reports to manage cloud resource consumption.

  • Cloud-based load generators are best suited for testing externally available AUT

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Using Cloud Hosts in Performance Center

Using cloud hosts in ALM involves:

  1. Defining Initial Cloud Settings

    Set up an account with a cloud provider and obtain the cloud provider credentials. For details, see Initial cloud settings.

  2. Adding Cloud Accounts

    Define a cloud account in Performance Center by entering your cloud provider credentials, associating projects to the account, and defining the total number of cloud credits allowed for consumption by your provisioned hosts. For details, see Cloud accounts.

  3. Defining Host Templates (for AWS accounts only)

    Host templates are used for defining provisioning related details, such as instance types, regions, hardware specifications, and software images. You can use default host templates or create your own templates. Performance Centeruses the details of the selected template to provision your host. For details, see Host templates.

  4. Provisioning Cloud Hosts

    Provisioning is the process of requesting the cloud provider to create a machine on the cloud. It uses the selected cloud account and host template to define the machine. You can choose the number of machines and their locations. For details, see Provision cloud load generators.

    Alternatively you can specify an image that is included in a custom configuration. For details, see Create custom image for load generators on the cloud.

  5. Monitoring Resource Consumption

    After provisioning your cloud hosts, you can analyze and monitor your cloud resource consumption by generating usage reports, and by sending alerts and notifications. For details, see Monitor cloud resources.

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