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SLAMD Distributed Load Generation Engine |
Version 2.0.0 |
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What does SLAMD stand for?
2. What is the history of SLAMD?
3. What platforms does SLAMD run on?
4. What are the future plans for SLAMD?
5. How can I learn more about SLAMD?
General SLAMD Questions
1. What does SLAMD stand for?
First, it is important to point out that the full official name for this project is "SLAMD Distributed Load Generation Engine", although it is commonly called "SLAMD" for short. The term "SLAMD" doesn't really stand for anything. Originally, SLAMD was designed for stress testing LDAP directory servers, which frequently use a process name containing "slapd" (Standalone LDAP Daemon) and the name "SLAMD" was a play on that. However, as SLAMD is now much more flexible and can be used to test a wider range of network applications, the directory-specific name is not as pertinent, but we have no intention of changing it.
2. What is the history of SLAMD?
Development of the SLAMD Distributed Load Generation Engine was begun within Sun Microsystems in early 2002. In 2004, it was released as an open source project under the terms of the Sun Public License. As of late 2007, primary development of SLAMD has been sponsored by UnboundID Corp.
SLAMD was initially developed to provide a mechanism for benchmarking and stress testing LDAP directory servers, and it has become the de-facto standard tool for that purpose. However, it has been developed in a very flexible and extensible manner, so it may be used for testing virtually any kind of network application, including web servers, mail servers, and relational databases. It is possible to develop custom jobs to interact with nearly any kind of application.
3. What platforms does SLAMD run on?
With the exception of shell scripts and batch files that are used to start the various components, SLAMD is written entirely in Java. As such, it should be possible to use on any system that is able to run Java 5.0 or higher, although for best results it is recommended that you use the latest Java 6.0 release. Note, however, that there are some features that do not work on all platforms. For example, some of the resource monitoring capabilities for measuring things like CPU, disk, and network utilization are performed by invoking and parsing the output of system commands that may not be available or supported on all platforms. SLAMD has been extensively tested on Solaris and Linux systems, and is also known to work on Windows and Mac OS X.
4. What are the future plans for SLAMD?
Although we believe that SLAMD is currently very full-featured, we do have ideas about ways that it can be made even more powerful and easier to use in the future. See this page for more information on features that we are considering for future releases.
5. How can I learn more about SLAMD?
The first place to look is the documentation. In particular, the Quick Start Guide should provide all the information you need to help you get SLAMD up and running quickly. Next, you can join one or more of the mailing lists and either observe the discussions or get involved in them yourself. And of course you can always check out the source code and look through it to see exactly how it is all put together.