Chauffeur^® WDK

The Chauffeur^® WDK WDK (Worklet Development Kit) Tool was designed to simplify the development of workloads for measuring both performance and energy efficiency. This tool's workload framework contains functionality that is common to most workloads, enabling developers to focus on the actual business logic of the application, and take advantage of the Chauffeur WDK framework's capabilities for configuration, execution, data collection, validation, and reporting.

When SPEC developed the SPECpower_ssj^® 2008 benchmark, the first industry-standard benchmark for measuring energy efficiency of servers, they also created the SPEC Power and Performance Benchmark Methodology to describe best practices for future benchmarks and tools developed to measure power and performance of computer systems. As SPEC set out to create the SERT™ suite, they recognized that many of these best practices were independent of the actual workload being measured.

The Chauffeur framework was initially designed to meet the requirements of the SERT suite. SPEC recognized that the framework would also be useful for research and development purposes and is now being made available as the Chauffeur WDK tool. This kit can be used to develop new workloads, or "worklets" in Chauffeur WDK tool terminology. Researchers can also use the Chauffeur WDK tool to configure worklets to run in different ways in order to mimic the behavior of different types of applications. These features can be used in the development and assessment of new technologies such as power management capabilities.

The Chauffeur WDK tool framework was designed and implemented by Jeremy A. Arnold. This work was done as a part of his Master's Project entitled Chauffeur: A Framework for Measuring Energy Efficiency of Servers at the University of Minnesota.