Clustering tests

The whole Tigase server development is oriented around automatic tests we run using Tigase Test Suite. Our aim is to not release new stuff before it is tested using automated tests. Only this way we can be sure all the server features work the same way for every release. The drawback is that we first need to create tests, then we can run them to test the server. It is a bit like double development effort.

The suite evolves together with the server. At the beginning I was running only functional tests executing test cases sequentially. Then I added performance tests which required running many tests concurrently on a separate connections and stability tests which in turn required lower resources consumption and..... stability. Every new addition required slightly new features set.

A few months back when I was running load tests that was another challenge to run the test suite from multiple machines and again I had to lower resources consumption to be able to open more than 60k user connections from each test suite instance.

We extensively use Bosh in a few Tigase installations so to provide decent support for web clients I have added Bosh tests which required a different way to maintain connections to the server because the Bosh client can send each request on a separate TCP/IP connection.

Now the clustering in Tigase. We have working clustering mode in the server for a few months already but we decided not to release a new version before it is well tested using automatic tests. New challenge - open multiple connections from the test suite and each connection must end up on a different cluster node.

Today I am happy to announce all the cluster tests have passed. This is a big step for us in our preparation for publishing Tigase 4.0. Now we can focus on those countless tiny bits required to prepare binary packages for the new version.

Below is a copy of the clustering tests report, for those who are interested in more details.

The tests have been run on the cluster installation with 3 nodes in domain: xmpp-test.tigase.org. If you look carefully you may notice uneven times for some tests depending on the node used. This is because we don't have 3 identical machines to do our tests. One of the node is QuadCore quite recent box while others are an old IBM laptop and 7 years old P4. Therefore these tests results can not be used as the performance indication. They are functional tests for the Tigase server working in the cluster mode.

Server version info:

Server basic configuration parameters:

Tests results:

Test end time: Oct 21, 2008 12:46:40 AM