What are the best load testing tools for stress testing web servers and proxy services such as NAT.
Some metrics to consider include
- throughput.
- hits per second.
- machine load.
Some of the basic load testing tools are
httperf http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/linux/httperf/
apache bench http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/programs/ab.html
siege http://www.joedog.org/index/siege-home
jmeter - has dynamic page features. http://jakarta.apache.org/jmeter/
Since you mentioned machine load data as a priority, I'll point out that most of the previously mentioned tools do not included any provision for monitoring your server or integrating data from the servers into the results. You'll probably want to consider a more sophisticated tool, such as our Load Tester product or one of its competitors.