How can I test how a client/server app will hold up in different network traffic conditions?

Question

I've recently been working on a project that involves a server app and a client app. The server streams video via UDP over a local network to the client, and the client buffers and displays it. I'm working on the client app, and have no control over the server app or any of the hardware or configuration behind it.

Presently, the client works as intended with a minimal hardware/server setup provided to me by the client, running on a home wireless LAN. One camera source, one connection to the server. However, my customer mentioned that the video looked jittery when he took it to a trade show and attributed that to network traffic conditions. I am thinking it might have had to do with crowded airspace at the show as well.

My issue is, I am a bit new to network programming and I am not sure how I can investigate, debug, and ultimately address the problem. How can I account for different real-world traffic conditions given my home network minimal setup? Ideally I could have a ton of these devices and a bunch of computers running the client to try out different configurations, but there must be some more scalable testing solution to analyze and debug performance under simulated or forced traffic conditions? What approaches might be fruitful?

Answer 1

There are a few paths to this. For your specific use case, you're probably best off using a tool like Clumsy to simulate bad network conditions.

If you're looking to test web traffic, you can use Fiddler to setup a proxy that you can configure to slow traffic.

If you're looking to test how well a webpage loads, you can use Chrome's built in dev-tools to simulate a slow network connection.