Web Service - "Current Connections" performance counter

Question

Hello,

Recently I start to work with VSTS and I made some test scripts to run against an website. The scripts consists basically of a synchronous WebService request.

I ran this script with 2000 users and checked the Current Connections Performance Counter but it was never higher than 17. The amount of Tests Running is always near 150 and since the test only contains one WebService request I thought the Current Connections would be similar to this number.

Can someone explain me what the Current Connections counter really means since it doesn't seems be the number of requests been processed at a time?

Thanks in advanced!

Answer 1

Have a look at the WebTest Connection Model and WebTest Connection Pool Size from the properties of your Run Settings in the load test. These settings have a lot to do with connection re-use to the server.

Current connections records the number of connections open, whether currently active or not. This article describes the counter in more depth.

" These counters can exaggerate the number of simultaneous connections because, at any given moment, some entries may not have been deleted even though the connections on which they are based have been closed. "