> So firstly, this is a really bad way to benchmark a server:
Ok, but how can I benchmark a server without using (some) client code?
And assuming I can't what kind of client code should I use instead? All
I need to do is sent a GET request and receive the response (containing
a single number).
In the case of 1 server and 1 client, you are not testing the server at all.
You are testing how the OS handles threads, the effectiveness of the OS loopback networking stack, and the efficiency of the CPU cache.
If you benchmark the server in this kind of setup you will find that it is barely doing anything and is not breaking a sweat.
When we benchmark, we have to set up at least 5 machines generating load (as clients) to 1 server. (does not matter what the technology for generating the load is, we still need this)
Having the clients on different hardware from the server is important for having honest benchmark numbers (for a whole host of reasons).
While performing the benchmarking, we gather metrics at the server side, and at each individual client side and have a single report for the whole benchmark.
It's not uncommon to have to significantly scale up the number of client machines in order to get real values from the server configuration, it all depends on what the server webapps are doing to know what is needed on the client side.
