Dancing About Architecture

I recently wrote that we had recently started getting more rigorous with proactive performance testing at FeedBurner, so I thought I'd share some of the tools that we're using to get the job done. If you have any suggestions for other tools that you think would be useful, please let me know!

For load generation, we're using JMeter. Yes, it's clunky, awkward, and ugly, but once you've twisted your brain around the underlying model, it's actually usable. We also considered using The Grinder, but it just didn't look compelling enough to switch to.

For pre-production use case evaluation, as well as ongoing monitoring of our production systems, we use Cacti to monitor the app servers, the db servers, and the switches. Joe even wired up the memcached servers, so we get ongoing cache performance monitoring as well. I don't know what we'd do without Cacti.

For profiling, we use JProfiler. Yes, believe it or not we'll occasionally pay for software. We hook into the Tomcat servers on our pre-production boxes and do remote profiling. Sure, I've been tempted to try out the free tools available with Eclipse TPTP, but JProfiler just does a great job so it's not worth the hassle.

Those are the three tools that have made a big difference for us. If you have some favorite tools for this kind of an app, please let me know!