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Simulating latency when developing on a local webserver

Asked 2009-10-31T14:36:51.860
11

The Performance Golden Rule from Yahoo's performance best practices is:

80-90% of the end-user response time is spent downloading all the components in the page: images, stylesheets, scripts, Flash, etc.

This means that when I'm developing on my local webserver it's hard to get an accurate idea of what the end user will experience.

How can I simulate latency so that I can understand how my application will perform when I've deployed it on the web?

I develop primarily on Windows, but I would be interested in solutions for other platforms as well.

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2 Answers

1

Run the web server on a nearby Linux box and configure NetEm to add latency to packets leaving the appropriate interface.

If your web server cannot run under Linux, configure the Linux box as a router between your test client machine and your web server, then use NetEm anyway

answered 2009-11-01T07:52:04.483
0

While there are many ways to simulate latency, including some very good hardware solutions, one of the easiest for me is to run a TCP proxy in a remote location. The proxy listens and then directs the traffic back to my final destination. On a remote server, I run a unix program called balance. I then point this back to my local server.

answered 2009-11-02T03:43:20.403

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