Citrix performance tests
use synchronization mechanisms to replay the tests on multiple Citrix
sessions independently of server performance.
These guidelines will help you record a reliable test
and avoid synchronization timeouts during test execution.
Ensure
that you have a working Citrix client environment and that you can
connect to a Citrix server. IBM® Rational® Performance Tester supports
Citrix Online Plugin 12.3 and Citrix Receiver 3.3 to connect to the
Citrix server. For more information about supported platforms, see IBM
TechDoc.
The most efficient recording method is to specify
a published application or a server in the recording wizard. It is
preferable to specify your login credentials in the wizard instead
of recording the login sequence as part of the test.
Ensure
that the session that you are recording will be reproducible. To record
tests that can be reliably replayed, follow these guidelines:
- If you save a file during a recorded session, when replaying the
tests, some applications might produce a warning for an existing filename.
If the warning was not in the recorded session, this might break the
test and cause synchronization timeouts.
- Do not use the mouse wheel to scroll when recording Citrix tests.
Mouse wheel events are not recorded and will result in synchronization
timeouts on execution.
- Anticipate and make provisions for avoidable warnings and unrecorded
windows and dialog boxes. For example, if you save a file while recording,
the test will try to save the same file during the replay. Although
the file might not exist during the initial recording, it does after
recording. Attempting to save will generate an overwrite warning and
cause synchronization timeouts.
- Disable or turn off warnings, windows, and dialog boxes that are
displayed during the first start of an application. These items will
be captured during the recording, but they might not be displayed
in subsequent application starts. This will cause synchronization
timeouts.
- Use dedicated test user accounts for performance tests. Ensure
that the user accounts have minimal potential to cause problems if
unpredictable mouse events occur outside of the application window
after a synchronization timeout.
- Set up the test accounts and applications to minimize unpredictable
window events, such as new mail notifications, automatic updates,
or daily tips. Disable extensible menus and hover text tooltips when
possible.
- Ensure that all computers used for recording and playback of Citrix
tests use the same international settings and character sets. Different
locales can cause some characters to be unavailable or keyboard inputs
to be incompatible.
- To launch applications from the desktop, use the Quick Launch
bar, desktop shortcuts, or select and enter the name of the
application. Do not launch applications or open files from locations
that are likely to change, such as Favorites, Recent
Files, or other dynamic menus.
- When using cascading menus like the Start menu,
always wait for a moment for the submenu to display. After the recording,
when editing the test, look at the mouse sequences that were generated
to ensure that they follow the correct path to display the submenu.
- When recording your tests, before interacting with a window or
dialog box, click the element to ensure that it gets focus, then provide
input.
- When an application is busy, for example when the mouse cursor
is a sand glass, avoid using the mouse or attempting to perform other
operations.
- After recording a session, some applications require user input
before quitting (for example, to record any changes). This can cause
discrepancies between the state of the application at the end of a
session and at the beginning of a test execution. To avoid problems,
at the end of a recording session, close all applications manually
and cleanly end the session by clicking Stop or Close on
the Citrix Recorder window, rather than from
the menu.
- To ensure long duration schedules are run without issues such
as test log transfer not completed, Citrix Online Plugin or Receiver
crashes when virtual users are ramping down, and Citrix processes
remaining, you must select the Uninterruptible iteration check
box for the loops. When you use this option, you must increase the
value of Time limit for a user to respond to a stop request in
the User Load tab of the schedule as per the
requirement.
After recording, and while you edit the test, it is important
to perform regular verification runs in order to validate the test
with a single user. After each run, open the test log to make sure
that the test synchronizes correctly. If necessary, change the synchronization
level from Mandatory to Conditional or Conditional to Optional on
window events or image synchronizations that produce unnecessary timeouts.
Only deploy the test on virtual users or run it in a schedule when
the test is robust enough to run flawlessly with a single user.
Rational Performance Tester Agent
requirements
When you install Rational Performance Tester Agent,
by default, the agent starts as a service. To use the agent for Citrix
recording, it must run as a process. For Windows, open Windows Services.
If the MajordomoService is set to Automatic start
up, set it to Manual and then stop the MajordomoService.
You can now open the Majordomo folder from the Rational Performance Tester Agent
installation path and double-click Majordomo.bat.
Optical Character Recognition
You can use
optical character recognition when performing image synchronizations.
This allows the test to synchronize itself by recognizing the contents
of a screen area. In some cases, the software can fail to correctly
recognize portions of text or letters.
To improve results of
the optical character recognition, follow these guidelines:
- Use preferably high contrast screen areas where the text is clearly
separated from the background.
- Select text areas with a homogeneous font size, style, and color.
Mixing text styles will produce poor results.
- Try changing the OCR language, OCR
zoom factor, OCR brightness, OCR
recognition rate or settings in the image synchronization
test element. You can change the default values for these settings
in the window.
- If the test produces image synchronization timeouts because of
inconsistent text recognition, open the Image Synchronization view
in the test log, and add click the Add value button
to add the unrecognized text as an alternate synchronization value.
- In some cases, it might be more efficient to use the bitmap hash
code method for image synchronization, instead of optical character
recognition.
When recording image synchronizations with optical character
recognition, accuracy of the recognized text is not essential. It
is only important that the recognized text is consistent each time
the test is executed for the test to synchronize. For example, if
a portion of text is displayed as "Hello" on the screen, and recognized
as "He110" in the recorded test, you should not attempt to correct
the value in the image synchronization test element, because the same
result should occur when the test is executed for the test to synchronize.
Long duration test runs
When running long
duration test schedules that exceed 24 hours, use the long run mode
to reduces resource consumption with the Citrix client. This mode
increases the reliability of long duration test runs by running the
tests in multiple process. You must enable this option for each user
group in the schedule.
In long run mode, a new process is created
for each virtual tester.