SPEC forms group to spark research on new benchmarking methodologies and tools

WARRENTON, USA: The non-profit Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC) has formed a group to spark research on new benchmarking methodologies and tools.

The SPEC Research Group is designed to encourage exchange among representatives from industry, academia and research institutes. Planned research efforts include techniques and tools for performance measurement, load testing, profiling, workload characterization, dependability and efficiency evaluation of computing systems.

A major component of the newly formed SPEC Research Group will be working groups that develop standard scenarios and workloads – called research benchmarks – for emerging technologies and applications. Benchmarks from the research group will be used primarily for in-depth analysis and evaluation of early prototypes and research results. This differentiates them from conventional benchmarks used for direct comparison and marketing of existing products.

The first of the research working groups will address cloud computing and peer-to-peer systems. Researchers are encouraged to bring existing work under the SPEC Research Group umbrella and to start new working groups.