Testing the updated Windows Media server
Applies To: Windows Server 2008 R2
This section contains a procedure with recommended steps for testing the updated Windows Media server before putting it into production.
To test the updated Windows Media server
Open Windows Media Services (click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Windows Media Services) and check your publishing points, playlists, logging directories, security settings, and so on. Make any adjustments that are necessary.
Evaluate the new features of Windows Media Services 2008 to determine how they will work in the updated environment. For more information, see Product Evaluation: Streaming Media Services.
Run Windows Media Load Simulator to ensure the stability of the Windows Media server and to determine its maximum stream capacity. During the Load Simulator test, consider the following:
Finding the maximum number of clients that your server can handle by simulating connections until your server goes down, refuses connections, or gives some other indication that it is overloaded. You will want to know its connection limit.
Using the maximum client load that you determined in the previous step to identify any hardware malfunctions or failures, run a 24-hour load test with 65 percent of that load before you put the server into production.
During the Load Simulator test, check the following performance counters in Performance Monitor to determine peak performance points or the need for additional hardware:
%Processor Time. The percentage of CPU that is busy executing a non-idle thread. A value that is consistently at 85 percent or higher may indicate the need for a faster CPU.
Current Late Read Rate. A disk-read operation that takes significantly longer than expected to complete. A value that is greater than 0 may indicate that the disk drive is too slow for the load.
Current Late Send Rate. A disk-write operation that indicates that the server cannot send out data at the expected rate. A sustained late send rate could mean that you need additional CPU.
Current Stream Error Rate. The number of stream data packets discarded by the server. This occurs when the CPU cannot keep up with the demand for data. This typically occurs in conjunction with late reads and can indicate too much network or disk traffic.
Total UDP Resend Requests. The number of times that clients request that the server resend packets because they were not received. Resend requests can be high when the server cannot reliably send UDP packets or if there is some network overload that is preventing packets from being delivered.
Total UDP Resends Sent. This value should be similar to the Total UDP Resend Requests value. A value that is significantly lower than the value for Total UDP Resend Requests may indicate that the server load is too high.
Based on the Load Simulator and Performance Monitor results, adjust Windows Media server limits.
See Also
Other Resources
Optimizing Windows Media Services
Performance and Reliability