Playback simulation

With Tesitmony v2.20, a number of enhancements have been made to the playback simulation program. This is the program that can be executed prior to a playback in order to understand metrics about the playback such as approximate run-times and number of concurrent users.

The changes were made to support the new playback method of “full throttle” plus allow the operator to understand the minimum number of bots required in the playback. These parameters can now be specified in the selection screen of the program:

Playback simulation parameters

The operator is now also able to run the program and specify that “full throttle” mode is going to be used in the playback as well as specifying the system settings of the playback system (for example, number of background work processes, number of worker jobs).

Prior to triggering the playback, the output of this program provides you an estimation of 3 key metrics:

1. Estimated playback duration (secs)
2. Maximum concurrent SAP GUI users
3. Average active batch jobs in target system

Here is an example of the output:

Output of the playback simulation program

The Estimated playback duration is specified in seconds (this will be resolved in the next release) so you must currently divide by 3600 to get the number of hours. This value is the minimum period of the playback assuming that the target system(s) will execute the same set of transactions with the same speed.

The Maximum concurrent SAP GUI users specifies the highest number of SAP GUI sessions that will be open during the playback. When this happens is not important. What is important is how this dictates the number of bots that are required during the playback. The bot limitation testing program that is now available in v2.20 should be run to determine the limits of the bots and then this should be used to ensure you have enough bots for the playback.

!Important: The Average active batch jobs in target system should also be used to determine the number of background work processes the target system(s) should be capable of supporting.

*Note: An additional capability now available in the playback simulation program is to break-down the output by time-periods. The operator can ask for a breakdown of the playback in 15, 30, 60 or 120 minute blocks to give greater granularity on what will be going on during that particular time block.