Test the communication between censhare Client and censhare Server.

Prerequisites

Users need admin permissions.

Introduction

The data transfer between the censhare Client and the censhare server depends on multiple parameters. Remote servers, internal or public network quality and a cloud installation influence the transfer rate. With this test, you can retrieve some hints on the client/server communication of your system and possible bottlenecks.

Test transfer rate

The Test transfer rate function is available in the Admin menu of the censhare Client. Proceed as follows:

  1. To enable the Admin menu, first start the Admin Mode: Open the censhare Client menu and select About censhare Client. Hold the ALT key and click OK in the dialog window. In the top menu bar, three additional items are shown: Samples, OSGi and Admin.

  2. Open the Admin menu and select Test transfer rate.

  3. In the Transfer rate dialog window, click Start.

  4. The test takes a few seconds to complete. The results are shown in the respective fields in the dialog window.

Test items

The test checks the following:

  • Upstream: the censhare Client generates a 10 MB text file with random strings and uploads the file to the server in a single thread.

  • Upstream (multi-threaded): The censhare Client generates a 10 MB text file with random strings and uploads the file partitioned in multiple threads. The multi-thread upload is configured in the censhare Client. In the File menu, select the Preferences menu, and select General. For more information see Configure multi-thread file upload in the Java Client.

  • Downstream: The censhare Client downloads the file generated and uploaded in the upstream check.

  • Latency: The censhare Client sends 1000 pings to the server and measures the roundtrip times. The dialog shows the average time.

The transfer rate test gives some hints on possible bottlenecks in your system and network. It is not intended for a detailed analysis. However, the test result gives some hints about the system performance:

  • The multi-thread upstream bandwidth should be significantly higher than the single-thread upstream bandwidth. If the two values are similar, this indicates that your network bandwidth is limited.

  • High latency indicates that the application server has a high load. Consider to upgrade the server hardware or setup a clustered system.

File compression

File compression has no direct influence on the upstream or downstream bandwidth. However, it reduces upload and download times as compressed files are reduced in size. The compression factor can be set to a value from 0 (no compression) to 9 (high compression). The default value is 3. The compression factor also depends on the file that is transferred. For example, the files generated by the transfer rate test consist of random strings without redundant patterns. Therefore, even if file compression is enabled, these files cannot be compressed.