Internship at Microsoft

	Student:	Dominik Hurnaus
	Degree Program:	Software Engineering University of Applied Sciences Hagenberg, AUSTRIA

Project Details

The internship comprised two main tasks:

• Programming of a tool to measure network metrics
  The task was to design, develop, and test a tool for network condition emulation and network traffic sniffing. The tool then had to be integrated into the existing test automation system to allow the measurement of network performance metrics for HTTP traffic in different (simulated) network conditions. For instance, Office testers should be able to run tests under the same circumstances as a customer with a 56 kbps modem connection.

• Conducting performance tests
  Since my position also comprised testing (SDE/T), I did not only write a tool for network performance testing, but also used this tool then to conduct network performance tests in the following areas:
  
  • Communication between Office Client and Office Server
  • Performance of Office Online

Network Performance Testing

Which factors affect network performance?

• Web Sites:
  Web site network performance is affected by size, count, and quality of data that makes up the web site. Certainly, other factors like network condition (bandwidth, error rate, latency, packet order,...) and the time a server needs to create a response can impact the performance.

• Client-Server Applications:
  Similarly to web site network performance, one of the most important factors is the condition of the network connection. Since network conditions can often not be influenced directly, the main focus in tuning network performance between client and server is on the size and the count of requests and responses in client/server communication. An often overlooked part of network performance is the communication between the server and other servers (web services, storage servers, legacy systems,...) which has to be tested and monitored as well.
  Tricks like connection pooling, clever caching of data, and data compression can increase network performance considerably.