What is the proper way to do a Stress test in JMeter?

Question

I would like to do a stress test our website with 10000 threads/users. I'm using JMeter for Stress testing the website. But, I don't know the proper way to start the test.

Initially, I have run the test with 5000 users with no ramp-up period, when I run the test, I'm getting the below error:

Response code: Non HTTP response code: java.net.SocketException

But If I put the ramp-up period while running the test, the error does not appear.

At this point, I want to know whether I have to give a ramp-up period or not while running the test.

I have read many posts about the ramp-up period, but not getting the satisfied answer.

Could anyone please help me to do a proper stress test in JMeter?

Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Looking forward to your reply.

Thanks

Answer 1

Keep in mind that the ramp-up period should not be 0 if you have large number of target threads. Ramp-up 0 means that performance script will add all the threads at once in the beginning of the test execution, and therefore it will put very severe load on your application at once.

In your case you are putting 5000 users at the same time, which doesn’t look realistic and usually such load propagation doesn’t make any sense. If you have a web application, users will usually come to your site more or less gradually and your servers have enough time to adjust and scale appropriately.   Ramp-up distribution should be based on your needs. Therefore, the first thing that needs to be done is to understand your test targets. The best way to do so is to learn and find out your current load patterns from production. But at the same time, in many cases it’s enough to create a linear ramp-up, which shows users coming gradually to your site or app.