Performance and Control Plane Accelerator

The two accelerator features are licensed per-Test Server and are controlled by license keys based on the number of Accelerator features purchased.

The Performance Accelerator feature increases the total data throughput of a test server and doubles the number of sessions the test server is licensed to run. When properly configured, this feature allows the test server to run twice the number of sessions a server is normally licensed for at twice the data rate that a test server could normally achieve.

The Control Plane Accelerator feature will enable the user to run 3 times the activation / deactivation rates on a VM or Test Server process. This feature requires a license.

The Data Accelerator feature is no longer supported as of release 15.0.

NOTE: The Data and Performance Accelerator features do not apply to application bound by the hardware constraints (example, IPSec accelerator card), except in the case of the quad Cavium 1620 card (L-ACC-004).

Performance Accelerator

The Performance Accelerator feature requires and is maximized only by use of the Port Reservation feature. Performance Accelerator allows you to use multiple processes (currently three) to increase the data throughput of the test server as well as double the number of supported mobile subscribers and activation/deactivation rates. Performance Accelerator is essentially Data Accelerator with double the number of mobile subscribers and double the activation/deactivation rates.

To utilize multiple processes, configure at least one test case per process with unique test ports and distribute the total number of mobile subscribers over the provisioned test cases as each process is limited to 2/3 the licensed subscribers per test server. Additionally, the per process activation and deactivation rates are also limited to 2/3 the total licensed rates.

For example, if the test application is licensed for 150,000 subscribers with an activation/deactivation rate of 3,000, the Performance Accelerator doubles the base licensed capacity to 300,000 subscribers at a rate of 6,000 per second across all three processes. You may configure three test cases with 100,000 subscribers each with an activation/deactivation rate of 2,000 subscribers per second.

NOTE: As long as you configure the test session to use Port Reservation with each test cases using unique ports, The Performance Accelerator feature distributes each test case on a different process allowing for a greater data throughput.

Some test scenarios may generate more data than a single test port can transmit and receive. In these cases, adding more test cases with more unique test ports allows a greater overall system throughput. In the above example, if the test port transmits or receives the maximum amount of data possible (just under 1 gigabyte per second unidirectional on a 1 gigabyte interface), it is likely that the total system throughput could be increased by adding more test cases with more ports.

NOTE: If your test session configuration requires adding more test cases with more ports per process, ensure that you configure the test session such that all processes are utilized evenly.

For example, on the test application licensed for 150,000 subscribers and an activation/deactivation rate of 3,000 per second, configure two test cases per process resulting in a total of six test cases. The 300,000 subscribers would now be distributed evenly over the six test cases, with 50,000 subscribers in each and an activation/deactivation rate of 1000 subscribers per second.

Control Plane Accelerator

Control Plane Accelerator will enable the user to run 3 times the activation / deactivation rates on a Virtual Machine (VM) or Test Server process. If a VM or test server process supported 3,000 activations per second before CPA , it can now support 9.000 activations per second by configuring 3 test cases @ 3,000 activations per second per VM or Test Server process.

Note: Data Plane throughput will be reduced with this feature.

With CPA turned on, every test case executing on a TS-Process will be round-robin assigned to Control Plane Cores, currently 3 Control Plane Cores per TS-Process. Thus, if you have 3 test cases running on a TS-Process, each test case would execute on a separate thread on their own core. Control plane performance (activation/deactivation rates) is nearly tripled. To get best performance increase, divide your UEs into 3 Test Cases. There is not any assignment configuration, so you must be aware of how you distribute the load across your TCs when using this feature. Also if multiple users or multiple tests are running on the same TS-Process with CPA enabled, you will be sharing the Cores, there is no assignments or reservations of Cores.

If your Test Server (TS) License allows the Control Plane Accelerator (CPA) feature (i.e. ts_control_cores > 1), you will be able to turn on the feature from the Test Server Admin window. If your TS also supports CPA, it will report Maximum Control Cores Per Process > 1, currently set to 3.

Example of License : C100 M4 Extreme CPA, must have CPA in the License in order to be able to enable the Control Plane Accelerator checkbox.

Real-Time Log Messages :

1. A message indicating that the TAS has turned on CPA (Control plane accelerator requested (n=numcores)), will be logged in the Real-Time Logs. This only happens the first time you switch to CPA enabled.
2. A message when the Test Server has reported multiple CPA cores enabled (Control plane accelerator enabled (n=numcores)), will be logged in the Real-Time Logs. This will happen every time the TS registers reporting multiple control cores as expected.
3. If you choose a License that does not support CPA, Control Plane Accelerator will be disabled.
4. If you choose a CPA license but do not enable CPA, there will be no CPA message logged in the Real-Time Logs.
5. Run Log messages details how the Run Log will indicate which Thread each TC is assigned to:
  “… p9(0)::tc2: Test Case running on thread 0”.

Errors you may see in the Real-Time Logs for CPA :

<system> 2020-05-21 10:31:42 Warning System Run TS(Coast86): TS does not support CPA, control plane accelerator not enabled - Indicates you have attempted to request CPA, but the TS has reported Max Cores = 1 or less, so it cannot be turned on. If you have an older < 19.2 TS or not enough Cores on a VM, this can happen.
<system> 2020-05-21 10:31:42 Warning System Run TS(Coast86): Incorrectly configured for control plane accelerator - If you had enabled control plane accelerator, but the current license doesn’t support it, this just indicates the TAS auto-corrected the configuration to not request CPA.
<system> 2020-05-21 10:31:42 Warning System Run TS(Coast86): TS is reporting different number of control cores than expected - This should not happen, but if it does it should self correct and/or just require a recycle, if the tests do not perform as expected look for this log.
<system> 2020-05-21 10:31:42 Warning System Run TS(Coast86): Control plane accelerator license out of sync

TIPS:

To maximize the performance accelerator features, you must configure at least three test cases on at least three reserved ports and ensure they are allocated evenly across at least three test cases.
If you use the same reserved ports across test cases, the test cases that share ports will run on the same TS process and could result in fewer than 3 instances of the TS being used, thus decreasing throughput.
If you do not use port reservation, the TS will run all test cases on a single process just as a TS without the feature does. Using only one process will result in decreased data throughput on the TS.
Balancing the load across all three processes will yield better results than an unbalanced load.
Multiple test cases where the load can not be evenly distributed by the automatic assignment based on number of test cases can be distributed on different processes using the Reserve Processes on the Session Builder Tab.

For the APIs, the new attributes are Read-only: “MaxControlCores” and “NumControlCores” and Writeable: “RequestControlAccelerator”, See the TCL - Landslide Tcl API Object and Perform Function Reference and RESTFul API - Using the RESTFul API contains reference information about the Landslide RESTFul API system. Refer to Swagger UI on Landslide Home Page, it contains the latest most accurate information for anything it covers.