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Apache Jmeter allows us to hit the server with simultaneous connections. On, the other hand I have 4 webservers - one acting as a load balancer and other 3 acting as a application server. So, i want to load test these servers at once to check its performance. Is there a way to load test a load balancer. Any tools that will be helpful to carry out. I will edit this question further with more information. For time being could someone point out a starting point.

Deepesh Thapa
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Ramp your normal app-test as usual (through the load balancer).

Eventually, you'll get high response times. If you see your application servers are running fine, then it's (probably*) your load balancer that's the issue. If the application servers are falling over, then you don't need to worry about the performance of your load balancer- it's not the bottleneck.

*obviously, there could be other problems, eg, simple network throughput. But you should be able to tell what's going on with some simple monitoring.

RowlandB
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Yes you can make a load test on your load balancer Apache server. Target your http requests to the load balancer apache server. I'm assuming the LB will distribute the load evenly through the 3 backend servers. After the test you evaluate the response times. Are they good? Great. If they aren't good you can make a second test targeting the 3 backend servers (don't let the requests pass by the LB). If the response times are better now then you know your LB is the problem, otherwise you may need to add more backend servers or optimize your applications (i guess this is what you'll do).

Bruno Negrão Zica
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  • But my load balancer follows sticky session. Thus, IF a request is made from one client then all the connections will get sticked to one server – Deepesh Thapa May 16 '16 at 19:01
  • But if that's how it works in production that's how you need to test it. If there is a load problem then you'll investigate what can be done to solve it. – Bruno Negrão Zica May 16 '16 at 19:32