CLIF, a framework based on Fractal for flexible, distributed load testing
The context of this work is performance evaluation of IT systems based on load testing. It typically consists in generating a flow of requests on a system under test, and to measure response times, request throughput, or computing resource usage. A quick overview of available load testing platforms shows that there exist hundreds of such platforms, including in the open source domain. However, many testers still tend to develop their own ad hoc load testing tooling. Why? This paper starts by looking for possible answers to this question, in order to introduce the CLIF load injection framework, which intends not to be yet another load testing platform. Based on the Fractal component model, the CLIF open source project aims at addressing key issues such as flexibility, adaptation, and scalability. We give here details about CLIFs architecture and associated tools as well as some feedback from a bunch of practical utilizations.
load testing performance evaluation load injection distributed system component-based software engineering