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SLAMD 273
SLAMD
The SLAMD Distributed Load Generation Engine (SLAMD) is a Java-based application designed for stress testing
and performance analysis of network-based applications. Initial development of SLAMD was performed at Sun
Microsystems, with recent development sponsored primarily by UnboundID Corp. [1] .
SLAMD is available under the terms of the Sun Public License, which is an OSI-approved open source license. The
main site for obtaining information about SLAMD is available at its main web site [2] , and it is available as a java.net
[3] project.
SLAMD was originally developed for the purpose of benchmarking and analyzing the performance of LDAP
directory servers, and it is the most powerful and flexible tool available for this task. However, it is also well-suited
for testing other kinds of network applications and has been used for things like Web servers and Web-based
applications, relational databases, and mail servers. It can also be used for non-network based applications (and in
fact, it is used for comparing things like CPU power and memory latency across a number of different kinds of
systems), although its distributed nature makes it ideal for systems that can be accessed remotely.
Architecture
SLAMD uses a distributed model consisting of a server (SLAMD is distributed with Apache Tomcat) and clients.
The operator schedules a new job using a browser, and submits the job for execution. The server sends the scheduled
job to selected clients, these clients then generate load based on parameters defined in the SLAMD job class and
report results back to the SLAMD Server. SLAMD 2.0.0-alpha1 uses the Berkeley DB Java Edition. [4]
Extensibility
"SLAMD provides a Java-based API to make it possible to quickly develop custom workloads, and it also
contains an embedded scripting engine that can make it easy to stress applications using protocols like LDAP,
HTTP, SMTP, IMAP, and POP, or any database that can be accessed via JDBC. It also includes tools for
recording and playing back TCP traffic, and a utility for intercepting LDAP communication and writing it as a
script that may be executed in the SLAMD scripting engine." [5]
SLAMD jobs are managed by Java classes. New SLAMD job classes can be created by writing Java code using a
well-defined API[6], compiling the Java code, and installing the Job Class (the class is installed on the servers and
the server pushes it out to the clients).
Installation
Supported Systems
SLAMD is supported on any computer operating system that supports Java, such as Solaris, Linux, AIX, HPUX, and
Windows. SLAMD version 2 or greater requires Java 5 or greater.
Jobs
Benchmarking campaigns are a series of SLAMD jobs. SLAMD jobs are created by filling in the forms in the
Schedule a New Job page. The operator sets up a job via a browser, then submits the job. The Server sends the job to
SLAMD Clients.
The SLAMD Clients generate load based on parameters in the SLAMD job class. Parameters can be items such as
duration, ramp-up and ramp-down, and any other parameter defined in the Job Class.