Diebold Nixdorf: Performance testing

Customer requirement

There was a performance problem on the eServices Framework production system. The application is used for monitoring and management of terminal equipment, cash registers and payment terminals. The issue was related to the component to which Diebold Nixdorf customers log in and send messages to the server. It was very difficult to simulate the situation using standard tools.

Solution

Together with the client we decided to simulate the problem in the cloud. First we determined the specifications of the environment in which the simulation was to run. We chose the number of connected clients and the method of carrying out everything using Microsoft Azure infrastructure. Because the total number of clients was several thousand we needed to connect multiple clients from one virtual device at the same time. We did this using Docker technology. The next stage was the preparation of the test environment, imagining, scaling, preparation of clients under Linux and Windows and configuration of system components. During performance testing we identified the problem and suggested a suitable solution for the client.

Interesting facts and challenges

The most important thing was to create a testing platform that was as close as possible to the client’s production environment. It is worth mentioning that the entire communication was encrypted at TCP level.