httperf

httperf is a software tool which is able to simulate load situations for web services, and calculates performance metrics against the results.

The purpose of httperf is to help answer a number of complex or otherwise hard to investigate questions. For instance, it is usually desirable when designing and programming a website to be interested in how well it will perform under a variety of cirumstances. When investigating whether or not to invest in faster equipment, many people want to know the limits to which their current hardware can perform. This is what httperf is designed to help answer.

httperf was originally written by Hewlett-Packard and is used by a number of organizations around the world, not the least of which is Yahoo.

Comlore Design Services is a project developer and maintainer of this software through the development efforts of Ted Bullock. Ted made a presentation to the 16th International World Wide Web Conference in Banff during the summer of 2007.

httperf Download and Media

As an alternative to downloading the audio presentation listed above directly, you can listen in your browser if your browser supports html5 audio. Note that the file is available as mp3 and as vorbis/oga.

httperf Presentation at WWW2007 Developer Track

2011-02-06 httperf Status Update

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