High-Performance Serverless Request Generator: Capable of Generating a Hundred Thousand Requests Per Second

Abstract

Depending on the scope, performance testing systems are distributed and scalable systems that can use many distributed instances to generate workload. Server-based systems used in performance testing can not cope with flexible workloads and specifications that may generate high costs for an extensive number of generated requests. Our goal was to develop a Virtual Patient Generator for testing the electrocardiogram streaming system for monitoring thousands of patients. To deliver a fully functional workload generator of a hundred thousand requests per second, in this paper, we developed a High-Performance Serverless Request Generator as an implementation of a Distributed Serverless Workload Generator concept. The system architecture comprises Serverless services, Pub/Sub, and Cloud Storage capable to deliver a cheaper version of a flexible number of requests, being scalable to an even higher extend. We present limitations, performance, and advantages by comparing the presented serverless load testing system with other workload generators available as SaaS or distributed load testing systems based on servers.