Active Directory Performance Testing Tool (ADTest.exe)

Microsoft has a performance testing tool for Active Directory called ADTest. It is primarily an Active Directory load-generation tool that allows you to simulate client transactions on the host server. According to Microsoft “By varying client load, you can relate the transaction rate to resource utilization on the server and get some idea about the requirements for your environment. Because ADTest can perform generic Active Directory requests, it can also create an organizational unit structure inside Active Directory. You can add many organizational units and user objects in those ADTest-created organizational units. You can also add attributes to the user objects. Once you have created the Active Directory structure you require, you can use ADTest to perform various Active Directory requests, including Modify and Search. Several pre-built tests have been written to reproduce some typical activities you might want to evaluate. Examples of these pre-built tests are: an interactive logon, a batch logon, a search for a random user, and a modification of an attribute of a random user. By varying your hardware environment or other test parameters, you can gain insight into the performance sensitivities of your particular setup.”

Microsoft reminds users that benchmarking and performance exercises only useful for a general understanding of the hardware requirements for various implementations. The tests that you run take place in a limited lab environments so they may not translate directly to real-world scenarios. In other words, use this tool just to get some general ideas and don’t depend on the results too much for a production environment.