Best Practices: Performance Testing PingDirectory

PingDirectory ships with several tools that you can use for performance testing.

Performance testing

The following table explains what each tool does.

Tool name Description

Tool name	Description
`searchrate`	Test search performance
`authrate`	Test authentication performance
`modrate`	Test modification and write performance

searchrate

Test search performance

authrate

Test authentication performance

modrate

Test modification and write performance

Creating test entries

Before testing, you should create some entries to test with. The easiest way to do this is by creating a template that can be used with the make-ldif utility.

Create a template file called templateTest.tmp:

define suffix=dc=example,dc=com
define maildomain=example.com
define numusers=5001

branch: ou=PerfTest,[suffix]
subordinateTemplate: person:[numusers]

template: person
rdnAttr: uid
objectClass: top
objectClass: person
objectClass: organizationalPerson
objectClass: inetOrgPerson
givenName:  <first>
sn:  <last>
cn: {givenName} {sn}
initials: {givenName:1}<random:chars:ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ:1>{sn:1}
employeeNumber:  <sequential:0>
uid: user.{employeeNumber}
mail: {uid}@[maildomain]
userPassword: Password_123
telephoneNumber:  <random:telephone>
homePhone:  <random:telephone>
pager:  <random:telephone>
mobile:  <random:telephone>
street:  <random:numeric:5>  <file:streets>  Street
l:  <file:cities>
st:  <file:states>
postalCode:  <random:numeric:5>
postalAddress: {cn}${street}${l}, {st} {postalCode}
description: This is the description for {cn}.

To create an LDIF file that can be used to create test users, run make-ldif with the template file:
```
bin/make-ldif --templatefile templateTest.tmp --ldiffile testUser.ldif
```
To create the testuser organizational unit (OU) and the test users in the directory, apply the LDIF:
```
bin/ldapmodify -a -f testUser.ldif
```

Searchrate testing

Now you can run searchrate. Running this utility on the same server hosting the directory being tested will have some impact on performance results.

bin/searchrate --hostname [server name] --port [LDAP port] \
--bindDN "cn=directory manager" \
--bindPassword [directory manager password] \
--baseDN dc=example,dc=com \
--scope sub --filter "(uid=user.[1-5000])" \
--attribute givenName --attribute sn --attribute mail \
--numThreads 10

The output will look similar to:

      Recent      Recent         Recent      Recent       Overall     Overall
Searches/Sec  Avg Dur ms   Entries/Srch  Errors/Sec  Searches/Sec  Avg Dur ms
------------ ------------  ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
    9703.655       0.204          1.000       0.000      8261.414       0.239
    9867.418       0.201          1.000       0.000      8796.509       0.225

Increasing the thread count will improve throughput for lower values. Higher thread counts will have diminishing returns on performance.

Authrate testing

You should test authentication rate. Authrate testing will be similar to searchrate testing.

The following command issues a search request to find a user and then a bind request to authenticate that user:

bin/authrate --hostname [server name] --port [LDAP port] \
--bindDN "cn=directory manager" --bindPassword [password] \
--baseDN dc=example,dc=com --scope sub --filter "(uid=user.[1-5000])" \
--credentials Password_123 --numThreads 10

The thread count should be varied to get an idea of how thread count (connection count) will impact performance. Test results will look similar to:

    Recent        Recent       Recent      Overall      Overall
 Auths/Sec    Avg Dur ms   Errors/Sec    Auths/Sec   Avg Dur ms
------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
  4131.452         0.482        0.000     3634.848        0.547
  4097.089         0.486        0.000     3789.004        0.525
  3829.309         0.520        0.000     3799.079        0.524

Modrate testing

The modrate tool tests the rate at which the directory can process modify operations. The arguments and output format will be similar to the other rate tools.

bin/modrate --hostname [server name] --port [LDAP port] \
--bindDN "cn=directory manager" \
--bindPassword [directory manager password] \
--entryDN "uid=user.[1-5000],ou=perftest,dc=example,dc=com" \
--attribute description --valueLength 12 \
--numThreads 10

Output will look similar to:

     Recent       Recent       Recent      Overall      Overall
   Mods/Sec   Avg Dur ms   Errors/Sec     Mods/Sec   Avg Dur ms
------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
   6505.814        1.530        0.000     6505.811        1.530
   8270.312        1.206        0.000     7387.366        1.349
   9295.419        1.073        0.000     8023.173        1.242

Remember, varying the thread or connection count will impact performance results.

Use Cases