Performance testing in an Alibaba Cloud VPC - Performance Testing

Performance Testing Service (PTS) allows you to conduct performance testing on servers that are deployed in the same region as the load generators in an Alibaba Cloud virtual private cloud (VPC). This topic describes how to conduct performance testing on a service deployed on a single Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance and a service deployed across multi-ECS instances in an Alibaba Cloud VPC.

Limits

Performance testing in an Alibaba Cloud VPC is subject to the following limits:

Resource limits: In an Alibaba Cloud VPC, the performance testing capabilities vary from 20,000 to 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) based on the region.
IP limits:
- All API calls performed during the performance testing must use the VPC internal addresses or the domain names that are mapped to the VPC internal addresses. For more information about how to bind a domain name and an IP address, see Domain name-IP address binding.
- A scenario supports up to one region. All testing APIs must use internal network services within the same region.
Others:
Internal network access can only be granted manually. Before you conduct the performance testing, familiarize yourself with the operations related to ECS security groups and Server Load Balancer (SLB) instances.

Test a service deployed on a single ECS instance

If you want to test a service deployed on a single ECS instance, use the following performance testing method:

Log on to the PTS console, choose Performance Test > Create Scenario, and then click PTS.
On the Scenario Settings tab, configure the scenario settings. For more information, see Create a PTS scenario.
In the Stress Mode Configuration section, set the Source of Stress parameter to Alibaba Cloud VPC and then select the region and the VPC.
Note
- Make sure that the number of idle IP addresses on the selected vSwitch is greater than the number of IP addresses of the load generators.
- To conduct a performance test across a VPC and other platforms such as a cloud platform or an on-premises data center connected to the VPC, make sure that the VPC and the platforms belong to the same CIDR block (for example, 10.0.0.0/8).
Click Save and Start Testing.

Test a service deployed across multiple ECS instances

To test a service that is deployed across multiple ECS instances within an Alibaba Cloud VPC, you can first create a SLB instance and attach the ECS instances to the SLB instance.

Create an SLB instance and attach the ECS instances to the SLB instance.
1. Log on to the SLB console. In the left-side navigation pane, click Instances.
2. On the Instances page, click Create CLB and configure the parameters. Set the Instance Type parameter to Intranet and the Network Type parameter to VPC. For more information, see Create and manage a CLB instance.
3. After you configure the parameters, click Buy Now.
4. On the Instances page, find the CLB instance that you want to manage and click Configure Listener in the Actions column. For information about how to configure a listener for a CLB instance, see CLB listener overview.
  Note
  By default, Access Control is turned off in the Advanced Setting section of the Protocol & Listener configuration step. Do not turn on the switch.
  Additional configuration fees are generated when you create a CLB instance.
  Insufficient CLB specifications may become the bottleneck of performance testing.
Configure the test settings within the Alibaba Cloud VPC.
1. Log on to the PTS console, choose Performance Test > Create Scenario, and then click PTS.
2. On the Scenario Settings tab, configure the scenario settings. For more information, see Create a PTS scenario.
3. In the Stress Mode Configuration section, set the Source of Stress parameter to Alibaba Cloud VPC and then select the region and the VPC.
Click Save and Start Testing.