Jump to main content
Release Notes
This document contains information about what's new, installation instructions, known issues in IBM® Rational® Performance Tester and contact information of IBM Customer Support.
Product description
You can find the description of Rational® Performance Tester.
What's new
You can find information about the features introduced in this release of Rational® Performance Tester.
Installing the product
You can find information about the installation and upgrade instructions for Rational® Performance Tester.
Known issues
You can find information about the known issues identified in this release of Rational® Performance Tester.
Contacting IBM Rational Software Support
You can find information about IBM technical support assistance for Rational® Performance Tester.
System Requirements
This document includes information about hardware and software requirements for IBM® Rational® Performance Tester.
Getting Started
This guide provides an overview and describes the task flows to get you started with Rational® Performance Tester. This guide is intended for new users.
Task flows for performance testing
The task flows are designed to help you understand the end-to-end process of some of the capabilities of performance testing. For some of the technologies, there are specific task flows that you can follow to gain a clear understanding of the process.
Product overview
You can gain the conceptual understanding of the product and its test extensions with these topics.
Streamlined Eclipse and full Eclipse overview
When you work in the streamlined Eclipse mode, only those functions that are directly related to the product are enabled in the workbench. When you install the product, by default, the check box to use the streamlined Eclipse mode is selected. With the full Eclipse mode, you have access to all Eclipse functions.
Tutorials
This section contains the tutorials which explains the main features of Rational® Performance Tester.
Performance test a Web application
The movies in this tutorial show you the main features of Rational® Performance Tester. The tutorial requires Flash Player to view.
Performance test an SAP application
The movies in this tutorial show you the main features of IBM® Rational® Performance Tester for testing applications on SAP servers. The tutorial requires Flash Player to view.
Performance test a Citrix application
The movies in this tutorial show you the main features of using IBM® Rational® Performance Tester for testing applications running in a Citrix XenApp environment. The tutorial requires Flash Player to view.
Test an SOA application
The movies in this tutorial show you the main features of IBM® Rational® Service Tester for SOA Quality or the SOA extension for IBM Rational Performance Tester. The tutorial requires Flash Player to view.
Samples
This section describes about the sample project which can be used with Rational® Performance Tester to test the functionality of an application.
Installation tuning tests for WebSphere® Application Server
The installation tuning tests were created to quickly and conveniently apply load to an application server for the purpose of tuning the application server for maximum throughput. The three tests that are provided stress various parts of the application server.
Administrator Guide
This guide describes how to install Rational® Performance Tester. After you install the software, you can perform administration tasks such as license configuration and integration with other products. This guide is intended for administrators.
Installation of Rational® Performance Tester
Installing the product involves verifying requirements, planning, managing licenses, and configuring web-based help. This section lists all such topics.
License management
Licensing for your installed IBM® software and customized packages is administered through the Manage Licenses wizard in the IBM Installation Manager. The Manage Licenses wizard displays license information for each installed package.
Product upgrade and migration
When you want to use the enhanced functionalities of Rational® Performance Tester Rational Service Tester for SOA Quality, you must upgrade to the latest version of the product software.
Configuration of the product
You must configure Rational® Performance Tester when you want to run SAP tests, collect response time breakdown data, or use the product in the Docker container.
Integration with other products
You can integrate Rational® Performance Tester with certain products to run tests, manage test assets, and create defects.
Test Author Guide
This guide describes how to create test scripts in Rational® Performance Tester and enhances tests by applying different test elements such as dataset, variables, and verification points. This guide is intended for testers.
Creating tests
To create a test, you record representative interactions with an application.
Editing tests
After you record a test, you can edit it to include datasets (to provide variable data rather than the data that you recorded), verification points (to confirm that the test runs as expected), and data correlation (to ensure that returned data is appropriate for the corresponding request). You can also add protocol-specific elements to a test. When you edit a test, the modified items appear in italic type. The italic type changes to regular type after you save the test.
Compound tests
You can create compound tests to help you organize smaller tests into scenarios that can then be run end-to-end. You can combine tests from different extensions to achieve end-to-end flow.
Simulating services with stubs
Service stubs enable you to simulate the behavior of an actual service for a wide variety testing or integration purposes.
Sending service requests with the generic service client
The generic service client enables you to send requests to services for which you do not have a convenient client and to view the responses returned by the service.
Emulating workloads
You emulate a workload by creating a schedule and adding user groups/rate runner groups, tests, and other elements to it.
Test Execution Specialist Guide
This guide describes tasks that you can perform on schedules, test execution with custom code, and Extending Rational® Performance Tester to support other protocols. This guide is intended for testers or test execution specialists.
Running schedules with performance testing
After you have added the user groups, tests, and other items to a schedule, and you are satisfied that it represents a realistic workload, you run the schedule.
Extending test execution with custom code
You can extend how you run your tests by writing custom Java™ code and calling the code from the test. You can also specify that results from the tests that are affected by your custom code be included in reports.
Extending Rational® Performance Tester to support other protocols
The Rational® Performance Tester Extensibility Software Development Kit (SDK) enables you to create extensions to support testing new protocols without modifying the core product code. You can create an extension that provides functionality for testing other protocols in addition to the HTTP protocol support that is standard in Rational Performance Tester.
Test Manager Guide
This guide describes how to keep track of the performance of the application by evaluating the test results. This guide is intended for test managers.
Evaluating results in web analytic reports
After the test run, evaluate the results in the web analytic reports. Web analytics collect data using new technologies thereby providing better user experience.
Logs overview
Rational® Performance Tester uses logs to store different types of information, which you can use to determine the reason for a test failure.
Reports and counters
See the description of the counters for all of the performance reports.
Troubleshooting Guide
This guide describes how to analyze and resolve some of the common problems that you might encounter while you work with Rational® Performance Tester.
Troubleshooting performance testing
This topic provides information about how to troubleshoot several problems with Rational® Performance Tester.
Performance testing error messages
Find more information about the error messages.
Additional error messages
You can find the additional error messages.
Reference Guide
This guide describes, additional topics to gain more knowledge about Rational® Performance Tester.
Accessibility features
Accessibility features help users who have physical disabilities, such as visual and, hearing impairment, or limited mobility, to use the software products successfully.
General reference for performance testing
See these performance testing topics for general reference.
UI preferences
Read the UI preferences topics.
WSDL security editor reference
With the Web Service Description Language (WSDL) security editor you can create and edit security configurations for a WSDL file.
All Guides (PDFs)
This page contains the release notes, system requirements, and persona guides for Rational® Performance Tester in PDF format.
Security Considerations
You can take certain actions to ensure that your installation is secure, customize your security settings, and set up user access controls.
Security Considerations
This document describes the actions that you can take to ensure that your installation is secure, customize your security settings, and set up user access controls.
Notices
This document provides information about copyright, trademarks, terms and conditions for the product documentation.