Published 4 times per year, the TPC Benchmark Status Report is a digest of the activities of the TPC and its technical subcommittees.

The TPC held a General Council meeting on February 11th in Houston, TX. On the OLTP front, the TPC-C Maintenance Subcommittee released Version 5.11 to include support for the TPC-Energy specification. the TPC-E Maintenance Subcommittee made editorial changes to the specification along with updates to EGen, resulting in Version 1.10.0. With respect to decision support, the TPC-H made changes to include wording to support the TPC-Energy specification, resulting in Version 2.10.0. The Energy Subcommittee updated the specification to version 1.1.0 which clarifies some definitions and examples, and enhances the code. Finally, the TPC approved participation in the VLDB 2010 conference in September 2010.

The TPC-C Maintenance Subcommittee completed work on Version 5.11 of the TPC-C Specification.  This version is available immediately.  Version 5.10 became obsolete on April 12, 2010.  Results obtained with TPC-C Version 5.11 are comparable with those obtained with TPC-C Version 5.10.1.

TPC-C Version 5.11 consists of the following editorial changes:

• Clause 0.1 – added wording to support TPC-Energy
• Clause 1.3.1 #5 – fixed typo in Numeric definition
• Clause 5.7.1 – added wording to support TPC-Energy
• Clause 6.6.3.7 – fixed spelling error
• Clause 7.2.3.1 – added solid-state storage to the list of storage devices
• Clause 8.1.1.2 - added wording to support TPC-Energy
• Clause 9.2.9 and 9.2.9.1 - added wording to support TPC-Energy

The TPC-H Maintenance Subcommittee released version 2.10.0 which includes adapted wording to publish optional Energy metrics alongside its well known performance metrics. It further includes updates to the tools, wording to enable electronic publishing of the Full Disclosure Report and some minor editorial changes. Version 2.10.0 will be effective immediately. Version 2.9.0 became obsolete on April 12th, 2010.

The TPC-E Maintenance Subcommittee is continuing to work on the overhaul of the status checking mechanisms that are used to detect errors and/or questionable circumstances while the workload is being run.

Numerous editorial changes were made to the TPC-E Specification related to the precision of reported numerical quantities, test run requirements (measured configuration) and on-line storage requirements (priced configuration).  References to the optional TPC-Energy benchmark standard were added.

The ETL benchmark committee is continuing to work on the descriptions of the transformations in the benchmark, getting the sample code running, and on determining the scaling rules and metrics for the benchmark. Some member companies are now working on test implementations of the benchmark transformations.

Companies interested in participating in the development of this benchmark are invited to join and encouraged to contact the TPC Administrator.

Following the success of the event in 2009, the TPC will participate in the the 36th international conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB 2010), in Singapore in September 2010.

The TPC formed a working group to scope a virtualization benchmark that is not comparable to other benchmarks. The group will explore the industry need for a benchmark that:

• Has a database-centric workload
• Stresses virtualization layer
• Moderate # of VMs, exercising enterprise applications
• Not many different application environments in a consolidation scenario
• Healthy storage and networking I/O content; emphasize I/O in a virtualized environment

The TPC Energy sub-committee has updated the specification to version 1.1.0 which clarifies some definitions and examples. An additional restriction was added which restricts the use of “name-plate values” for no more than 20% of the system under test power consumption.

The TPC-Energy subcommittee has enhanced the code which will interfaces to the power analyzers and temperature probes. This code collects the energy and temperature data of the components of the System Under Test and creates a uniform log for reporting the results. The TPC uses an enhanced  SPEC PTDaemon power and temperature daemon code as part of the Energy Measurement System (EMS). These programs are available to Test Sponsors to run the TPC-Energy option of the TPC Benchmarks.

The TPC-Energy Specification 1.1.0 has been approved by the TPC membership and is now the current version of TPC-Energy Benchmark Specification.

TPC Auditors have be certified for the TPC-Energy benchmark and TPC-Energy results may now be audited and submitted for publication.

Version 1.5.0 of the Pricing Specification is currently required for all TPC benchmarks. The Price Maintenance Committee has not identified any additional changes needed for future versions of the specification.

In addition to the TPC TC2010 Technology Conference activities, the TPC issued a press release announcing the TPC-Eergy benchmark and conducted press and analyst briefings.

We welcome opportunities to present the benefits and status of TPC benchmarks: if you are interested in inviting someone from the TPC for a presentation, please contact Michael Majdalany (majdalany @ tpc.org)

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