JMETER - Part 1

JMeter is software that allows us to run load test or performance oriented business (functional) test on different protocols or technologies.

This is a Java desktop application with a graphical interface using the Swing graphical API, can therefore run on any environment / workstation accepting a Java virtual machine, for example: Windows, Linux, Mac, etc.

The protocols supported by JMeter are:

• Web: HTTP, HTTPS sites 'web 1.0' web 2.0 (Ajax, flex and flex-ws-amf)
• Web Services: SOAP / XML-RPC
• Database via JDBC drivers
• Directory: LDAP
• Messaging Oriented service via JMS
• Service: POP3, IMAP, SMTP
• FTP Service

JMeter Features

• It’s free & open source software.
• It has simple and intuitive GUI.
• JMeter can load and performance test many different server types: Web - HTTP, HTTPS, SOAP, Database via JDBC, LDAP, JMS, Mail - POP3
• It is platform-independent tool. On Linux/Unix, JMeter can be invoked by clicking on JMeter shell script. On Windows it can be invoked by starting the jmeter.bat file.
• It has full Swing and lightweight component support (precompiled JAR uses packages javax.swing.*).
• JMeter store its test plans in XML format. This means you can generate a test plan using a text editor.
• Its full multi-threading framework allows concurrent sampling by many threads and simultaneous sampling of different functions by separate thread groups.
• It is highly extensible.
• Can also be used to perform automated and functional testing of your application.

How JMeter Works?

JMeter simulates a group of users sending requests to a target server, and return statistics that show the performance/functionality of the target server / application via tables, graphs etc. The figure below depicts this process: