HELP!!! How to replicate a real-time load testing?

["George, Janeve" <Ja...@lionbridge.com>]

Hi all,

I am performing some load testing for a web-based application in Tomcat
server. I need the load testing to happen as if it would have been in
real-time scenario. I am using the "Access Log Sampler" for the purpose.
The parser is OrderPreservingLogParser. Currently I have to set the
Number of Threads to the number of entries in the log file [Access Log
file with common logging pattern].

The requirement for the load test is that, if in real-time the web
application performs a set of access within a span of time, say 24 hrs.
then the load testing must happen as if it was in real-time. 

For example:

An user access a page: http://mydomain:8080/app/sample.jsp at a time
15:48:04 which gives an entry in the access log as

127.0.0.1 - - [31/Aug/2006:15:48:04 +0530] "GET app/sample.jsp HTTP/1.1"
200 174

Now after a couple of time another page is requested say:
http://mydomain:8080/app/sam.jsp at a time 15:52:40 which gives an entry
in the access log as

127.0.0.1 - - [31/Aug/2006:15:52:40 +0530] "GET app/sam.jsp HTTP/1.1"
200 174

Now when I do my load testing, the time span should be as if it happened
in real-time. 

127.0.0.1 - - [5/Dec/2006:1:48:04 +0530] "GET app/sample.jsp HTTP/1.1"
200 174
127.0.0.1 - - [5/Dec/2006:1:52:40 +0530] "GET app/sam.jsp HTTP/1.1" 200
174

Currently I find that either we have to set a Ramp up period or a random
timer.

How can I create a test plan that can replicate the real-time requests?
Is it possible to create a test plan that replicates the whole requests
found in the log file without explicitly setting the number of threads
for the thread group?

Thanks in advance

- Janeve George