IP Switching and Load Testing

IP Switching in Load testing

The most common use for IP Switching is when load testing against a load balancer. Load balancer typically use the IP address to route requests to a particular Web server in the farm.
So if you have 2 agents driving load to 3 Web servers, since all traffic is coming from two IPs (one on each agent), only two of the web servers would get all the traffic.
IP Switching provides a way to have traffic come from multiple IPs on the same agent, enabling the load balancer to balance load across the farm.
IP Switching will only work if you are running the test from the Controller/Agnet(remote execution).
To confirm current execution settings in VS2010:

    1. Under Test – Edit Test Settings – open the test settings that you wish to use. Check the Roles, and under Test Execution Method, make sure you have that set to Remote Execution then the Controller edit box should appear for you to type in the macine name. You can also save this as a new test settings.
    1. Under Test – Select Active Test Settings – make sure you set the test settings active for the one you edited above.
    1. In the Menu Test-Manage Test Controller all the agent machine should be listed
  1. When you submit your LoadTest, make sure that you see in the menu Test-Manage Test Controller that it shows all agent machine and the status switches to “Running Test”.

For more details refer the Visual Studio Performance testing quick reference guide.

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