locations load balancing

WebPageTest Private Instances
1

Hi,
in my private istance i have 4 location sites,
three of these are peripheral and work with a single pc that running tests with three browsers (CH, IE, FF) …
the main site contains 5 pc identical to each other always with the three browsers.

I have configured location.ini

[locations]
1=aaa
2=bbb
3=ccc
4=ddd
default=ddd

;---

[aaa]
1=aaa1
label="site 1 (Backbone provider1)"
lat=
lng=
default=aaa1

[bbb]
1=bbbADSL
label="site 2 (adsl provider 2)"
lat=
lng=
default=bbbADSL

[ccc]
1=ccc1
label="site 3 (backbone provider 3)"
lat=
lng=
default=ccc1

[ddd]
1=ddd1
2=ddd2
3=ddd3
4=ddd4
5=ddd5
lat=
lng=
label="site 4 (backbone provider 4)"
default=ddd2

;---

[aaa1]
browser=CH, FF, IE
latency=0
label="10.b.c.d"
user-data: wpt_server=10.b.c.d
connectivity=LAN

..... etc etc

the question is about main site:
I launch tests with api command and my system run tests continuosly for subsequent graphical analysis (pcs probes are very busy)
[php]
$url_completa = $url_server.“runtest.php?f=xml&location=”.$this->exec_now[‘location_name’].“&fvonly=1&mv=1&ignoreSSL=1&video=1&script=”.urlencode($this->exec_now[‘test_script’]);

$ch = curl_init($url_completa);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, true);
$output = curl_exec($ch);
[/php]

now I use // location=“ddd1:IE.LAN”

I need to change in // location=“ddd:IE.LAN”

how webpagetest solves the problem of load balancing between (ddd1 … ddd5)

Thanks for your help
Rikiki61

2

You shouldn’t use different locations for each agent. Think of a location as a work queue (which is exactly what it is). The agents will all pull work from the queue and if you have multiple identical agents you just configure them to point to the same location.

3

thank you for your suggestion, I did not think about it …
there is one thing that is holding me back:
leaving the direct association between single probe and location It allows me to individually measure the running performance tests and execution block so as to act on the single PC.
currently all PCs are Windows 10 but not the same version, so now I need to direct the scripts always in the same machine.
in the next few days I will complete the upgrade to anniversary version and then probably I will apply your suggestion

4

There is also support for passing an affinity string with a test so that the same “key” always gets assigned to the same agent. i.e. if you pass the URL (or a hash of it) as the affinity string, all tests for that URL will always go to the same agent.

The affinity will change if an agent goes offline but as long as the same number of agents are running it should stay consistent.

You can also force a specific agent by passing the PC name as a “tester” param. If an agent goes offline the tests assigned to it will queue up forever though.

5

wonderful
thanks for valuable suggestions
This greatly simplifies the system I put on
… I’m going to enjoy myself