New SPECweb2009 benchmark adds ability to
measure power consumption of web servers
WARRENTON, Va., June 5, 2009 � The Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC) has released SPECweb2009, new software that adds the ability to measure power consumption to the worldwide standard for web server performance evaluation. SPEC members active in developing the benchmark include AMD, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel and Sun Microsystems.
SPECweb2009 replaces SPECweb2005, and results are not comparable to its predecessor. In addition to the three workloads in SPECweb2005 representing banking, ecommerce and support, SPECweb2009 provides a power workload with a measurement methodology taken from the SPECpower group. Workloads in SPECweb2009 uncover key components that constitute a good, secure web server, including LAN performance, processing power, memory bandwidth, storage, and power usage.
Adding power to the equation
“We’ve responded to industry requests to provide a standardized method of including power measurement in the web server performance equation,” says Rema Hariharan, chair of the SPECweb project committee. “This continues the SPEC tradition of delivering the most objective and representative benchmarks for measuring performance, and now power, for the newest generation of web servers.”
The new power workload in SPECweb2009 is based on the ecommerce workload run at six different load levels. Testing begins at the maximum number of connections used in the ecommerce workload and ramps down to idle. Each load level is run for a period of 10 minutes. The new benchmark also separates results using PHP scripts from those using JSP.
The metrics, called SPECweb2009_JSP_Power and SPECweb2009_PHP_Power, are a performance-to-power ratio representing the sum of simultaneous user sessions for total watts used.
The banking, ecommerce and support workloads in SPECweb2009 measure peak performance as the maximum number of simultaneous user sessions that a web server is able to support while meeting specific throughput and error-rate requirements. Unlike SPECweb2005, there is no normalization of the scores against a reference platform. Metrics called SPECweb2009_JSP_peak and SPECweb2009_PHP_peak consolidate the geometric mean of results from the three workloads. The geometric mean of the average power consumed in watts while running these workloads is reported alongside the performance metric.
Available now
SPECweb2009 is available now on CD-ROM for $1,600 for new licensees, $800 for upgrades, and $400 for eligible non-profit organizations. To order, contact the SPEC office: phone: 540-349-7878; fax: 540-349-5992; e-mail: info@spec.org; web: www.spec.org.
The SPECweb2009 package comprises code for the primary client and clients that run the benchmark, code to generate data sets on the web server, backend simulator code, and the power temperature daemon that collects data from the power analyzer and temperature sensor. More information on configuration, installation and other issues can be found at http://www.spec.org/web2009.
About SPEC
SPEC is a non-profit organization that establishes, maintains and endorses standardized benchmarks to evaluate performance for the newest generation of computing systems. Its membership comprises more than 80 leading computer hardware and software vendors, educational institutions, research organizations, and government agencies worldwide.
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