httperf—a tool for measuring web server performance

This paper describes httperf, a tool for measuring web server performance. It provides a flexible facility for generating various HTTP workloads and for measuring server performance. The focus of httperf is not on implementing one particular benchmark but on providing a robust, high-performance tool that facilitates the construction of both micro- and macro-level benchmarks. The three distinguishing characteristics of httperf are its robustness, which includes the ability to generate and sustain server overload, support for the HTTP/1.1 protocol, and its extensibility to new workload generators and performance measurements. In addition to reporting on the design and implementation of httperf this paper also discusses some of the experiences and insights gained while realizing this tool.