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grpc

Generate requests for a gRPC service and and collect latency and error-related metrics.

Usage example

In this performance test, the grpc task generates call requests for a gRPC service hosted at hello.default:50051, defined in the protobuf file located at grpc.protoURL, with a gRPC method named helloworld.Greeter.SayHello. Metrics collected by this task are viewable with a Grafana dashboard.

Single method:

helm upgrade --install \
--repo https://iter8-tools.github.io/iter8 --version 1.1 routeguide-test iter8 \
--set "tasks={grpc}" \
--set grpc.host=routeguide.default:50051 \
--set grpc.protoURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/grpc/grpc-go/v1.52.0/examples/route_guide/routeguide/route_guide.proto \
--set grpc.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.GetFeature \
--set grpc.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/unary.json

Multiple methods:

helm upgrade --install \
--repo https://iter8-tools.github.io/iter8 --version 1.1 routeguide-test iter8 \
--set "tasks={grpc}" \
--set grpc.host=routeguide.default:50051 \
--set grpc.protoURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/grpc/grpc-go/v1.52.0/examples/route_guide/routeguide/route_guide.proto \
--set grpc.endpoints.getFeature.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.GetFeature \
--set grpc.endpoints.getFeature.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/unary.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.ListFeatures \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/server.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.recordRoute.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.RecordRoute \
--set grpc.endpoints.recordRoute.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/client.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.routeChat.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.RouteChat \
--set grpc.endpoints.routeChat.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/bidirectional.json

Parameters

Any field in the Config struct of the ghz runner package can be used as a parameter in this task. The JSON tags of the struct fields directly correspond to the names of the parameters of this task. In the usage example, the parameters host and call correspond to the Host and Call fields respectively in the Config struct.

In addition, the following fields are defined by this task.

Name Type Description
protoURL string (URL) URL where the protobuf file that defines the gRPC service is located.
dataURL string (URL) URL where JSON data to be used in call requests is located.
binaryDataURL string (URL) URL where binary data to be used in call requests is located.
metadataURL string (URL) URL where the JSON metadata data to be used in call requests is located.
warmupNumRequests int Number of requests to be sent in a warmup task (results are ignored).
warmupDuration string Duration of warmup task (results are ignored). Specified in the Go duration string format (example, 5s). If both warmupDuration and warmupNumRequests are specified, then warmupDuration is ignored.
endpoints map[string]EndPoint Used to specify multiple endpoints and their configuration. The string is the name of the endpoint and the EndPoint struct includes all the parameters described above as well as those from the Config struct. Load testing and metric collection will be conducted separately for each endpoint.

Precedence

Some parameters have a default value, which can be overwritten. In addition, with the endpoints parameter, you can test multiple endpoints and configure parameters for each of those endpoint. In these cases, the priority order is the default value, the value set at the base level, and the value set at the endpoint value.

In the following example, all three endpoints will use the default timeout of 20s (from Config struct).

helm upgrade --install \
--repo https://iter8-tools.github.io/iter8 --version 1.1 routeguide-test iter8 \
--set "tasks={grpc}" \
--set grpc.host=routeguide.default:50051 \
--set grpc.protoURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/grpc/grpc-go/v1.52.0/examples/route_guide/routeguide/route_guide.proto \
--set grpc.endpoints.getFeature.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.GetFeature \
--set grpc.endpoints.getFeature.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/unary.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.ListFeatures \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/server.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.recordRoute.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.RecordRoute \
--set grpc.endpoints.recordRoute.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/client.json

In the following example, the getFeature and listFeatures endpoints will use the default timeout of 20s and the recordRoute endpoint will use a timeout of 30s.

helm upgrade --install \
--repo https://iter8-tools.github.io/iter8 --version 1.1 routeguide-test iter8 \
--set "tasks={grpc}" \
--set grpc.host=routeguide.default:50051 \
--set grpc.protoURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/grpc/grpc-go/v1.52.0/examples/route_guide/routeguide/route_guide.proto \
--set grpc.endpoints.getFeature.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.GetFeature \
--set grpc.endpoints.getFeature.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/unary.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.ListFeatures \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/server.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.recordRoute.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.RecordRoute \
--set grpc.endpoints.recordRoute.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/client.json

In the following example, all three endpoints will use a qps of 40s.

helm upgrade --install \
--repo https://iter8-tools.github.io/iter8 --version 1.1 routeguide-test iter8 \
--set "tasks={grpc}" \
--set grpc.host=routeguide.default:50051 \
--set grpc.protoURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/grpc/grpc-go/v1.52.0/examples/route_guide/routeguide/route_guide.proto \
--set grpc.timeout=40s \
--set grpc.endpoints.getFeature.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.GetFeature \
--set grpc.endpoints.getFeature.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/unary.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.ListFeatures \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/server.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.recordRoute.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.RecordRoute \
--set grpc.endpoints.recordRoute.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/client.json

In the following example, the getFeature and listFeatures endpoints will use a timeout of 40s and the listFeatures endpoint will use a timeout of 30s.

helm upgrade --install \
--repo https://iter8-tools.github.io/iter8 --version 1.1 routeguide-test iter8 \
--set "tasks={grpc}" \
--set grpc.host=routeguide.default:50051 \
--set grpc.protoURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/grpc/grpc-go/v1.52.0/examples/route_guide/routeguide/route_guide.proto \
--set grpc.timeout=40s \
--set grpc.endpoints.getFeature.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.GetFeature \
--set grpc.endpoints.getFeature.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/unary.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.ListFeatures \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/server.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.timeout=30s \
--set grpc.endpoints.recordRoute.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.RecordRoute \
--set grpc.endpoints.recordRoute.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/client.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.recordRoute.timeout=30s

Further more, set parameters will trickle down to the endpoints.

helm upgrade --install \
--repo https://iter8-tools.github.io/iter8 --version 1.1 routeguide-test iter8 \
--set "tasks={grpc}" \
--set grpc.host=routeguide.default:50051 \
--set grpc.protoURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/grpc/grpc-go/v1.52.0/examples/route_guide/routeguide/route_guide.proto \
--set grpc.skipFirst=5 \
--set grpc.endpoints.getFeature.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.GetFeature \
--set grpc.endpoints.getFeature.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/unary.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.ListFeatures \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/server.json \
--set grpc.endpoints.listFeatures.timeout=30s \
--set grpc.endpoints.recordRoute.call=routeguide.RouteGuide.RecordRoute \
--set grpc.endpoints.recordRoute.dataURL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iter8-tools/docs/v0.17.3/samples/grpc-payload/client.json

In this example, all three endpoints will have a skipFirst of 5.

Grafana dashboard

The results of the grpc task is visualized using the grpc Iter8 Grafana dashboard. The dashboard can be found here.

Assuming the URL to the Grafana service is $GRAFANA_URL, you can install the dashboard as follows:

  1. Open Grafana in a browser.
  2. Add a new data JSON API data source with the following parameters
    • URL: $GRAFANA_URL/grpcDashboard
    • Query string: namespace=<namespace>&test=<test name>
  3. Import the grpc Iter8 Grafana dashboard
    • Copy and paste the contents of this link into the text box

You will see a visualization of the performance test like the following:

grpc Iter8 dashboard

For multiple endpoints, the visualization will look like the following:

grpc Iter8 dashboard with multiple endpoints