Load test with Odin

Introduction

Load testing is a type of performance testing that simulates a real-world load on any software, application, or website. Without it, your application could fail miserably in real-world conditions. A load testing can be performed on services or smaller components like database servers or firewalls.

Odin, as a developer tool, provides the capability to the users to perform load testing. In this article, we are going to understand the steps to perform load testing with the help of Odin. This will cover the following steps with the help of a sample:

1. Creating a load environment

2. Releasing a service

3. Deploying a service in load environment using provisioning config file

4. Configuring the components for scaling

Creating a load environment

User can create a load environment in Odin to perform load testing. Please use the following command for the same:

#Format
odin create env --env-type {ENV_TYPE} --account {CLOUD_PROVIDER_ACCOUNT}

#Example
odin create env --env-type load --account load

To view the load environment created with the above command, execute the following to see the status:

odin list env --env-type load

Releasing a Service

Once the environment is created, the service needs to be released. It is important to note that the version of the service that needs to be released here should be a snapshot version. For load testing, we will not release concrete version [to know more about Snapshot and Concrete version, refer to the document here - Odin Versioning].

To release the service you have created and willing to load test, use the following command:

odin release service --path (path to directory)

In the above command, ‘path to directory’ means the path where your service is lying. The sample service definition can be found in this link - definition.json.

Deploying a service in load environment using provisioning config file

Once the above step is completed, the AMI and the Docker image for the service gets created. Now a user needs to deploy the same in the load environment. The default deployment type in load environment is AWS EC based deployment. However, user can pass customised deployment type in provisioning config file to override the same. To deploy the service, please use the following command [the second command to pass provisioning config separately].

odin deploy service --name {serviceName} --version {serviceVersion} --env {envName}

odin deploy service --name {serviceName} --version {serviceVersion} --provisioning {provisioningFilePath} --env {envName}

For using load testing, you can create a provisioning file. Please find the sample provisioning file here - provisioning-load.json; in this provisioning config, you can specify your load balancer type. The instance type can also be specified using this file and Odin will be taking these params into consideration while running a load test.

Configuring the components for scaling

To perform a load testing, today a user has to follow the actions mentioned in the table below. In the rightmost column, you can see what exactly you need to specify using Odin and rest can remain as it is i.e rest can be performed via AWS console:

ASG upscale/downscale	Using AWS Console
LCU provisioning	Using AWS Console
RDS instance type	You can specify this using provisioning config
Add reader/writer in database	Using AWS Console
Add notes and shard in Redis	Using AWS Console
Parameter Group	Using AWS Console
Load Balancer Type	You can specify this using provisioning config