Here’s an interesting issue — a SP 2013 implementation I’m working on is supposed to be moving files off fileservers and into SharePoint. The client is very interested in establishing baselines of the user experience before and after to demonstrate the user experience is at least no worse than before (probably to provide fall-back statistics to deal with the inevitable complaints!). The client suggests simple ping tests between workstations and fileservers. I’m suggesting that won’t give a full or reliable picture, and more involved testing needs doing which better emulates the user experience of opening a file located on a fileserver with an application; and that any such testing needs scripting and repeating from multiple clients (at the minimum, from each customer location).
We could script up some powershell to time the transfer of a standard batch of files, that might well be sufficient as the application opening time would be similar both pre- and post-implementation and therefore could be left out of the benchmarking. However, as the pre-imp baseline would involve opening from a fileshare, whereas post-imp would be opening through the browser, thus perhaps the assumption of similarity of opening (and saving) times is false.
I’d be very interested in hearing what anyone else might have done for a similar requirement, and the logic behind the decisions. The trickiest bit is coming up with a test that’ll give a fair comparison of pre- and post- activity, and it seems no matter what, the actual tests will have to be performed differently to create a representative user experience comparison.
But, I’d also settle for some informed brainstorming as to what and how you would measure and demonstrate the findings!
