The question would be much clearer when use a concrete e.g,
Lets say I need to topup my mobile , I have two options
top up using sim services [UICC with OTA]
top up using a mobile-top-up-app (a hypothetical mobile app) [web-services https ]
my question is, what is the main advantage of option 1 over 2? what is so important about OTA?
OTA works out of the box as a 2G service (as such it benefits a huge coverage). It is supported by all devices regardless of brand, OS, country. The system also covers retrys to some extent. It will incur minimal cost to your customer, especially in roaming situations.
Using a data pipe works too, but you need to have an app deployed and running in the end-user's device.
Related
I had an architecture question, and I had to rewrite the question title multiple times, since SO asked me to. So please feel free to correct it, if you feel so. I am not an expert in cache related things so I would very much appreciate some insights about my architecture related question.
So the situation is like this. We have a web based design app (frontend Javascript, backend PHP) which presents lots of clipart images to our customers who use that in creating online art work. Earlier, our app was loaded into an AWS machine and we used to have the clipart images also stored locally in the same server in order to not have any network transfer required to load the clipart and thus make the design app load time faster. The customer created designs were also saved into a backend MySQL server connected directly to the web based design app (in JSON and relational model).
A while before a new team joined to make a mobile version of this app, and they insisted that the cliparts should be loaded from a "central location" both for our web app, and for the mobile app they are creating. They also said that the design should also be stored into a "central database", accessible by the web and mobile apps (and there were some major re-architecting of the JSON structure as well)
So finally, the architecture changed such that, the cliparts now reside in a centralized location (S3 Server). And there is an "Asset Delivery and Storage (ADS) System" to which our design app makes requests for clipart images and gets served. (Please note that the cliparts repository is very large and only a subset of clipart images are served based on various parameters - such as the style of the design, account type of the customer etc). So this task is now done by the ADS system (written in python).
And since our web design app no longer has any local storage of cliparts nor logic of cliparts filtering (which got delegated to ADS, so no more server side PHP), it has also become a purely web based (front end Javasdcript) app without any server requirements and subsequently got moved to S3.
Now the real matter is that, our web app seems much more slower when initial loading, than when we had our on stash of cliparts stored in the server. I read that if an app requests for images, those images are cached in the browser and if the customer, for eg, loads the same order before that cache has expired then there is no repeat request that needs to be sent to the server (in this case ADS).
If that is true, is there any case I can really make to state that moving the clipart images from the design app server to the ADS system and having to send a request and load them every time a design is loaded has contributed in part to the recent slowness of the design app?
Also most times I hear the answer that "mobile app also does the same and is faster".I am not a mobile developer. Could there be some mobile cache tricks that help the mobile app to be much more "cache-efficient" than the purely web based design app, such that even though the architecture is same for both (sending request ADS for cliparts), the mobile app does it in a better and more efficient manner?
End note: I realise I am not asking a specific programming question. But from some of the notes I have read here, SO is a community for programmers, and I do not know of any other community that so well answers programming related questions. The architecture question I have is a genuine programming related question I face at work and sadly I am not skilled enough to understand if all the recent architectural changes there has any drawbacks that is causing our web app performance to degrade noticeably.
Thanks for reading, and I would really appreciate any pointers or even links to reading for better understanding this.
In chrome, open up the developer tools, and click on the network tab. 90% of the time you can identify the slow resource from there.
I have Two Question related to Native App Performance Testing?
1)I have a Payment App, and it comes with bank security which is installed at the time of app installation. It sends an token number and rest of the data in encrypted format. Is it possible to handle such kind of request using Jmeter or any other performance testing tool, do i need to change some setting in app server or jmeter to get this done ?
2)Mobile App uses Device ID, so if i simulated load on cloud server it will use same Device ID which i used while creating script? is it possible to simulate different mobile ID to make it real-time?
any Help or references will be appreciated ..:)
(1) Yes. This is why performance testing tools are built around general purpose programming languages, to allow you (as the tester) to leverage your foundation skills in programming to leverage the appropriate algorithms and libraries to represent the same behavior as the client
(2) This is why performance testing tools allow for parameterization of the sending datastream to the server/application under test
I'm not an expert in JMeter. But work a lot with Loadrunner (LR) (Performance Testing Tool from HP). Though JMeter and LR are different tools, they work under same principle and objective and so objective of performance testing.
As James Pulley mentioned, the performance testing tool may have the capability. But the question is,
Have your tried recording your app with JMeter? Since your app is a native kind, please do the recording from simulator/emulator and check the feasibility. JMeter might not be the right candidate for mobile app load testing.
Alternatively there are lot of other tools available (both commercial and opensource) in market for your objective.
Best Regards
With the raise of several mobile network technologies, load testing a mobile application has become a different ball game in comparison with normal web app load testing. This is because of the differences in the response times that occur in different mobile networks such as 2G, 3G, 4G, etc. Additionally the client being a mobile device has plenty of physical constraints such as limited CPU, RAM, internal storage etc. All of these need to be considered while conducting performance testing of a mobile application if one wants to simulate a scenario close to a real time condition.
Coming to your 2 questions,
1) Yes it is possible but the amount of manual effort that needs to be invested to make the script execution ready might vary (since you are mentioning there is data in encrypted format - some are easy to understand and some are just crude and difficult to handle using JMeter). But there might not be any app server setting that would be required to change (unless of course you are unable to handle the encryption with JMeter in which case, the encryption might have to be disabled for QA phase)
2) As rightly said by James Pulley, these values can be parameterized. However, I fear that these values will be validated by the app server and hence the values need to be appropriately fed in the requests.
You can refer to this link for reference on how to do Mobile Performance Testing for Native application http://www.neotys.com/documents/doc/neoload/latest/en/html/#4234.htm#o4237
.The same could be extrapolated to JMeter to an extent.
I have built a web application, in which I display a map and I use both WMS and WFS requests in order to show network (lines) and points of interest on the map. The application has several filters in order to send queries to database (such as date filters etc.).
The app runs in a remote server. The speed when accessing the app from my browser (firefox or chrome) is satisfying. Everything runs quite smoothly.
My issue is that I get complaints related to speed and performance. So my question is: on what does the performance depends on and how can it be possible that me having great experience and others don't?
One hypothesis is that the computer power of the other client is too low (which is not the case).
Another one is that the server doesn't have enough resources (which is also not the case).
What are other parameters that affect the performance of a web app?
The connection speed is a very important factor and also the response time (mostly distance client-server).
! For the sake of simplifying things I will refer to Windows Store applications (also known as Metro or Modern UI) as "app" and to common desktop applications as "application" !
I believe this is still one of the most unclear yet important questions concerning app-development for developers who already have established applications on the market:
How to manage communication between apps and applications on a Windows 8 system? (please let's not start a debate on principles - there're so many use cases where this is really required!)
I basically read hundrets of articles in the last few days but still it remains unclear how to proceed doing it right from the first time. Mainly because I found several conflicting information.
With my question here I'd like to re-approach this problem from the viewpoint of the final Windows 8 possibilities.
Given situation:
App and application run on same system
1:1 communication
Application is native (written in Delphi)
Administrator or if required even system privileges are available for the application
In 90% of the use cases the app requests an action to be performed by the application and receives some textual result. The app shouldn't be left nor frozen for this!
In 10% the application performs an action (triggered by some event) and informs the app - the result might be: showing certain info on the tile or in the already running and active app or if possible running the app / bringing it to the foreground.
Now the "simple" question is, how to achieve this?
Is local webserver access actually allowed now? (I believe it wasn't for a long time but now is since the final release)
WCF? (-> apparently MS doesn't recommend that anymore)
HTTP requests on a local REST/SOAP server?
WinRT syndication API? (another form of webservice access with RSS/atom responses)
WebSockets (like MessageWebSocket)?
Some other form of TCP/IP communication?
Sharing a text file for in- and output (actually simply thinking of this hurts, but at least that's a possibility MS can't block...)
Named Pipes are not allowed, right?
There are some discussions on this topic here on SO, however most of them are not up-to-date anymore as MS changed a lot before releasing the final version of Windows 8. Instead of mixing up old and new information I'd like to find a definite and current answer to this problem for me and for all the other Windows application and app developers. Thank you!
If you are talking about an application going into the Store, communication with the local system via any mechanism is not allowed. Communication with the local system is supported in some debug scenarios to make app development easier.
You can launch desktop applications from Windows Store applications with file or protocol handlers, but there is no direct communication.
So, to reiterate the point... communication between WinRT and the desktop is not allowed for released Windows Store applications. Communication between the two environments is allowed in debug only.
The PG has posted in different places reasons for why communication is not allowed, ranging from security, to the WinRT lifecycle (i.e., you app gets suspended - how does that get handled re: resources, sockets, remote app, etc. -- lots of failure points) and the fact that Store apps cannot have a dependency on external programs (i.e., I need your local desktop app/service for the app to run, but how do I get your app/service installed? You cannot integrate into the Store app. You can provide another Store desktop app entry, but that is a bad user experience.) Those are high level summaries, of course.
Can you suggest how to create a test environment to simulate various types of bandwidths and traffic in a web app?
Or maybe an open source program which does this against localhost?
I think this is a very important subject when programming web apps but it is not a usual topic, the only way i can imagine to create such kind of environment is to use some kind of proxy in a local network but before start looking into the squid documentation i would like to hear your suggestions.
if you're using apache you may want to take a look at apache ab
There are two approaches to shape network traffic to simulate a network link:
Run some software on the client or server that sits somewhere in the networking stack and shapes the traffic between the app and the network interface
Run the traffic shaping software on a dedicated machine with 2 network interfaces through which your traffic is routed
(2) is a better solution if you don't want to install software on the client or server (and possibly impact performance), but requires more hardware fiddling.
Some other features you might want to think about are what shaping parameters can be simulated. Most do delay and packet loss, some do jitter and bandwidth limiting as well. Some solutions can selectively filter traffic (for instance by port number, TCP or UDP etc).
Here is a list of some of the systems I've found:
Open Source or Freeware
DummyNet is an open source BSD Unix-based for dedicated devices. It is not clear if the software is being actively maintained
NistNet is an open source Linux-based system for dedicated devices. The software has not been actively maintained for several years.
Commercial
Apposite Technoligies sell dedicated hardware solutions for simulating WAN links, with a Web based GUI for configuring the settings and collecting traffic measurements
East Coast DataCom sell hardware dedicated simulators for simulating routers and modems
Itrinegy offer both dedicated device solutions, and solutions for running on clients or servers.
Network FX offer several dedicated device products for simulating network impairments between the client & server
NetLimiter is a client side system that allows throttling of individual applications, and includes a firewall.
Shunra Software offer a range of products, from high end enterprise WAN simulation and testing, to a simple client-resident emulator.
The closest I can think of is doing something similar with VEDekstop from Shunra..
Simulating High Latency and Low Bandwidth in Testing of Database Applications
Shunra VE Desktop Standard is a Windows-based client software solution that simulates a wide area network link so that you can test applications under a variety of current and potential network conditions – directly from your desktop.
I wrote a php script awhile back which used CURL to run a sequence of page requests against my server which represented a typical use scenario. I had it output the times that it took for the server to respond to each of the requests. I then had another script which spawned a bunch of these test case scripts simultaneously for a sustained period and correlated the results into a file which I could then look at in a spreadsheet to see average times. This way I could simulate the number of users hitting the site that I wanted. The limitations are that you need to run the test script on a different server to the web server and that the client machine can become too loaded to give meaningful results past a certain point. I've since left the job otherwise I would paste the scripts here.
If you are running a Linux box as your server, Linux box as your client, or have the capability to put (perhaps a VM) a Linux router between your client and server, you can use NetEm.
NetEm is a Linux TC (Traffic Control) discipline which can delay (i.e. add latency) packets leaving a host. Although it's tricky to set up clever rules (e.g. add latency to some traffic, not to others), it's easy to add a simple "delay everything leaving the interface by 50ms" type rules and some recipes are provided.
By sticking a Linux VM between your client and server, you can simulate as much latency as you like. And you can turn it on and off dynamically. Linux has other TC disciplines which can be combined with NetEm to restrict bandwidth (but the script to set this up can be somewhat complicated). NetEm can also randomly drop packets.
I use it and it works a treat :)
Web Application Stress Tool (WAST) from Microsoft is what you need.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e2c0585a-062a-439e-a67d-75a89aa36495&displaylang=en
I haven't used it for years (lack of need, not because I'd found anything else), but xat webspeed would be the first thing I would point toward
As other people have mentioned, Apache's ab (comes with Apache, so you probably have it already) is good.
Other good options are:
HP's LoadRunner Apache
Jakarta's JMeter
Tsung (if you want to get your erlang on)
I personally like ab and JMeter the best.
We use Loadrunner to do bandwidth and traffic simulation in our App. Loadrunner is can start agents on various machines and you can simulate one machine as running on dialup modem v/s another on DSL v/s another on Cable internet.
We also use Loadrunner to simulate various kinds of traffic conditions from 10 user run to 500 user run. We can also insert think times in the script and simulate a real user executing the http request. The best part is that it comes with a recording studio where it will plug in with Internet explorer and you can record the whole scenario/Usecase that can be as simple as hitting one page to a full blown 50-60 page script or more.
i found this little java program that works great : sloppy
yet not a proffesional solution but it works for simple tests, i guess it uses java streams and buffers to slow down the connection .
Have you looked at Tsung? It's a great utility for seeing if your website will scale in event of attack, I mean massive popularity. We use it for our web frontend, and our internal systems too.
If you're interested in performing your tests out of your browser, there is also a really great Firefox plug-in.
Do not forget about Wanulator (http://www.wanulator.de/).
The name Wanulator comes from "WAN" and "simulator. This pretty much describes what the software does: It simulates different Internet conditions such as delay or packet loss. Furthermore it simulates user access line speeds e.g. modem, ISDN or ADSL.
Wanulator is currently packaged as a Linux boot CD based on SLAX. This will give you a full out of the box experience. You can turn any PC into a test-system within a blink - just by booting the Wanulator CD. The package already includes useful client SW such as web-browser and network sniffer (Wireshark). Nevertheless if the PC has 2 network interfaces the system can run as an intermediate system between your server and your client - as a switch - without any configuration hassles.