Simulate Distributed Cache Performance

To simulate the usage of your created cache, NCache provides the Test Stress option. The Test Stress mechanism simulates a heavy transactional load on your distributed cache(s) that you can use to monitor the cache performance you've configured.

Test and Monitor Cache Performance Through Management Center

Follow the steps mentioned below to simulate your cache performance under stress through the NCache Management Center:

  • Launch the NCache Management Center by browsing http://localhost:8251 or <server-ip>:8251 For Windows and Linux.

  • From the left navigation bar, click on Clustered Caches.

Note

You can also use the Test Stress button against your selected cache in the Clustered Caches page.

NCache Management Center Clustered Caches

  • Select the cache you want to simulate and click on the "..." button against it. This will open up a dropdown menu of various operations that you can perform on a cluster.
Note

You can also access the monitoring dashboard page by pressing the Monitor button against the selected cache cluster.

NCache Management Center Clustered Cache Dropdown Menu

  • From these options, select Monitor Cluster if you want to visually see the counters updating, or select Show Statistics if you want to view the stats of the cache you want to simulate.

View Simulation Through NCache Monitor

NCache Monitor provides a graphical view dashboard to monitor various cache counters. If you choose to view cache performance simulation through NCache Monitor, follow these steps:

NCache Web Monitor

  • Click on the Test-Stress button. This will open up a dialog box through which you can customize your simulation.

NCache Simulate Test Stress Data

  • In the dialogue box, you can choose the Test-Stress timer for 10 or 30 seconds or 1, 3, or 5 minutes, depending on your choice.

  • As soon as you press the Start button, you can visualize the various cache operations that take place on the client dashboard.

  • You can view that the data is being added to the cache through the counters displayed on NCache Monitor. After the set expiration interval has elapsed, the counters will show data being removed from the cache.

NCache Web Monitor Counter Dashboard

View Simulation Through NCache Statistics

NCache Statistics provides a report view of various cache counters. If you choose to simulate cache performance through statistics, then follow these steps:

NCache Statistics

  • On the statistics board, click on the Test-Stress button. This opens up a dialog box through which you can customize your simulation.

NCache Simulate Test Stress Data

  • In the dialogue box, you can choose the Tess-Stress timer for 10 or 30 seconds or 1, 3, or 5 minutes, depending on your choice.

  • As soon as you press the Start button, you can view the statistics for different operations on the cache like Additions/sec and Fetches/sec.

  • You can view that the data is being added to the cache through the counters shown on the screen. After the set expiration interval has elapsed, the counters will show data being removed from the cache.

NCache Stats Counter Dashboard

Test Stress Through Command Line Interface

You can quickly run a Stress Test Tool that comes with NCache installation to verify that cache clients can make calls to cache servers.

To start this test on the cache you just created, please type the following command in Windows PowerShell:

Test-Stress –CacheName ClusteredCache

This command starts making cache calls to the cache servers as Test-Stress simulates a transactional load on the specified cache. You can monitor the cache performance using PerfMon counters and NCache Monitor.

See Also

Create Cache
Monitor Caches
Use NCache for Data Caching
NCache Programmer's Guide