The Microsoft Web Application Stress (WAS) tool lets you create or record a script that can used to put stress on a server. This application is free of charge and is available for download from the Microsoft Web Application Stress Web site at http://webtool.rte.microsoft.com/.
Using WAS, you can determine the latency of particular requests and measure throughput. Accurate user simulation, however, is difficult to perform with WAS. For user simulation, consider the purpose of the SharePoint Portal Server computer. Once you identify the appropriate usage profile, you can estimate the expected throughput rates for the hardware used when designing a script. For specific information about capacity planning, see the white paper, “Capacity Planning for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001” on http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/portalserver.asp.