Chapter 6 - Application-level measurements

Abstract

This chapter covers some of the key application-level tests and setups used in current practice. Application-level measurements resonate well with end-users; they provide a sense that there is some correlation to the ultimate end-user experience, rather than being merely some abstract property of the infrastructure devices. Application-level measurements are also referred to as system-level measurements, because they attempt to characterize the performance of a system as a whole, rather than any piece or subset of it. Enterprise applications have less emphasis on real-time requirements and much more need for high bandwidth, scalability, robustness, and security. Maintaining the end-user orientation of application-level measurements, one can categorize the metrics being measured into usage cases. A usage case is an attempt to narrow the focus of a measurement scenario; each usage case represents a typical end-user activity, and is associated with a set of metrics that quantify the end-user experience. Measurement setups for application-level testing are generally more complex and more varied than any other kind of testing, due in large part to the complexity of the traffic being applied to the device under test (DUT) and the measurements that must be made.