So, I decided to check out this thing called Taurus, specifically for software developers. I’d heard some buzz about it being a good way to run performance tests, and I figured, why not give it a shot?
Getting Started
First things first, I needed to get Taurus installed. it turned out to be pretty straightforward. I just used pip, you know, the usual Python package installer. I just opened up my terminal and typed something like:
install bzt
And Boom! It’s starting to install, and I wait until it’s done.
Figuring Out the Config
Next up, I had to create a configuration file. This is basically where you tell Taurus what you want it to do. They use YAML, which is okay, I guess. Not my favorite, but it gets the job done. I named mine something simple, like “my_*”.
Inside the file, I had to specify a few things. I started with a simple example, just to get the hang of it.
- executor: First it’s “jmeter”.
- concurrency: set it to like 10, so it wouldn’t overload anything.
- ramp-up: I put in 1m, meaning it would gradually increase the load over one minute.
- hold-for: set it to 2m, to keep the load steady for two minutes after the ramp-up.
- scenario:Defined my “requests” to send, in this case, just a simple GET request.
Running the Test
Okay, config done, time to run this bad boy. Back to the terminal, and I typed:
bzt my_*
Taurus started chugging along, spitting out all sorts of numbers and graphs in the console. Honestly, it was a bit overwhelming at first, but I could see the basics: requests per second, response times, error rates, that kind of stuff.
Analyzing the Results
After the test finished, Taurus generated a bunch of reports. There were HTML reports, which were pretty nice for visualizing the data. I could see how the response times changed over time, where the bottlenecks were, all that jazz.
Tweaking and Repeating
Of course, the first run wasn’t perfect. I noticed a few things I wanted to change. Maybe I needed to increase the concurrency, or try a different URL. So, I went back to my config file, made some tweaks, and ran the test again. That’s the beauty of this whole thing – you can iterate quickly and see how your changes impact performance.
Over all,I’m starting to figure it out, I could totally see how this would be useful for keeping my code running smoothly.
