An IMS performance benchmark implementation based on the TTCN-3 language

Performance benchmarking is a method to assess performance characteristics of various systems across different system architectures under realistic conditions. A benchmark is executed to collect measurements such as fail rate, response times or round-trip delays. Additionally, it can be used to identify scalability or usability problems of the system under heavy load. This paper describes a performance benchmark for the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). IMS is a standardised architecture for providing a unified session control on top of various access network technologies realising flexible multimedia applications. In the context of IMS, where a scalability of up to several millions of subscribers is required, the goal of a benchmarking system is to help understand how a system will perform when the number of calls per second and the number of active users increase. The Testing and Test Control Notation (TTCN-3) has been used to implement the benchmark specification.