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Category: Cloud

Now available: An updated CloudXPRT Preview build and source code

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on July 17, 2020

Today, we published an updated CloudXPRT Preview build (v0.97), along with the build’s source code. The new build fixes a few minor bugs, and makes several improvements to help facilitate installation, setup, and testing. The fixes do not affect CloudXPRT test results, so results from the new build are comparable to results from the original build (v0.95). You can find more detailed information about the changes in last week’s blog.

The CloudXPRT Preview v0.97 source code is available to the public via the CloudXPRT GitHub repository. As we’ve discussed in the past, publishing XPRT source code is part of our commitment to making the XPRT development process as transparent as possible. By allowing all interested parties to download and review our source code, we’re encouraging openness and honesty in the benchmarking industry and are inviting the kind of constructive feedback that helps to ensure that the XPRTs continue to contribute to a level playing field.

While the CloudXPRT source code is available to the public, our approach to derivative works differs from some open-source models. Traditional open-source models encourage developers to change products and even take them in different directions. Because benchmarking requires a product that remains static to enable valid comparisons over time, we allow people to download the source, but we reserve the right to control derivative works. This discourages a situation where someone publishes an unauthorized version of the benchmark and calls it an “XPRT.”

We encourage you to download and review the source and send us any feedback you have. Your questions and suggestions may influence future versions of CloudXPRT.

If you have any questions about CloudXPRT or the source code, please let us know!

Justin

Posted in Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Cloud, CloudXPRT, data analytics, On-premise, Performance benchmarking, Source code, web microservices | Tagged , , , , |

A CloudXPRT build with bug fixes is on the way

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on July 9, 2020

We want to let CloudXPRT testers know that updated installer packages are on the way. The packages will include several fixes for bugs that we discovered in the initial CloudXPRT Preview release (build 0.95). The fixes do not affect CloudXPRT test results, but do help to facilitate installation and remove potential sources of confusion during the setup and testing process.

Along with a few text edits and other minor fixes, we made the following changes in the upcoming build:

  • We updated the data analytics setup code to prevent error messages that occurred when the benchmark treated one-node configurations as a special case.
  • We configured the data analytics workload to use a go.mod file for all the required go modules. With this change, we can explicitly state the release version of the necessary go modules, and updates to the latest go release won’t break the benchmark. This change also removes the need to include large gosrc.tar.gz files in the source code.
  • We added a cleanup utility script for the web microservices workload. If something goes wrong during configuration or a test run, testers can use this script to clean everything and start over.
  • We fixed an error that prevented the benchmark from successfully retrieving the cluster_config.json file in certain multi-node setups.
  • In the web microservices workload, we changed the output format of the request rate metric from integer to float. This change allows us to report workload data with a higher degree of precision.
  • In the web microservices workload, we added an overall summary line to results log file that reports the best throughput numbers from the test run.
  • In the web microservices code, we modified a Kubernetes option that the benchmark used to create the Cassandra schema. Prior to this change, the option generated an inconsequential but distracting error message about TTY input.

We haven’t set the release date for the updated build yet, but when we do, we’ll announce it here in the blog. If you have any questions about CloudXPRT, please let us know!

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, Cloud, CloudXPRT, data analytics, Kubernetes, Servers, web microservices | Tagged , , , , , , , |

The Introduction to CloudXPRT white paper is now available!

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on July 2, 2020

Today, we published the Introduction to CloudXPRT white paper. The paper provides an overview of our latest benchmark and consolidates CloudXPRT-related information that we’ve published in the XPRT blog over the past several months. It describes the CloudXPRT workloads, choosing and downloading installation packages, submitting CloudXPRT results for publication, and possibilities for additional development in the coming months.

CloudXPRT is one of the most complex tools in the XPRT family, and there are more CloudXPRT-related topics to discuss than we could fit in this first paper. In future white papers, we will discuss in greater detail each of the benchmark workloads, the range of test configuration options, results reporting, and methods for analysis.

We hope that Introduction to CloudXPRT will provide testers who are interested in CloudXPRT with a solid foundation of understanding on which they can build. Moving forward, we will provide links to the paper in the Helpful Info box on CloudXPRT.com and the CloudXPRT section of our XPRT white papers page.

If you have any questions about CloudXPRT, please let us know!

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, Cloud, CloudXPRT, White papers | Tagged , , , , , |

The CloudXPRT results viewer is live

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on June 25, 2020

We’re happy to announce that the CloudXPRT results viewer is now live with results from the first few rounds of CloudXPRT Preview testing we conducted in our lab. Here are some tips to help you to navigate the viewer more efficiently:

  • Click the tabs at the top of the table to switch from Data analytics workload results to Web microservices workload results.
  • Click the header of any column to sort the data on that variable. Single click to sort A to Z and double-click to sort Z to A.
  • Click the link in the Source/details column to visit a detailed page for that result, where you’ll find additional test configuration and system hardware information and the option to download results files.
  • By default, the viewer displays eight results per page, which you can change to 16, 48, or Show all.
  • The free-form search field above the table lets you filter for variables such as cloud service or processor.

We’ll be adding more features, including expanded filtering and sorting mechanisms, to the results viewer in the near future. We’re also investigating ways to present multiple data points in a graph format, which will allow visitors to examine performance behavior curves in conjunction with factors such as concurrency and resource utilization.

We welcome your CloudXPRT results submissions! To learn about the new submission and review process we’ll be using, take a look at last week’s blog.

If you have any questions or suggestions for ways that we can improve the results viewer, please let us know!

Justin

Posted in Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, Cloud, CloudXPRT, data analytics, Interactive tools, microservices, Performance benchmarking, results, results submission, web microservices | Tagged , , , , , |

The CloudXPRT Preview results submission schedule

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on June 18, 2020

A few weeks ago, we shared the general framework of the periodic results publication process we will use for CloudXPRT. Now that the CloudXPRT Preview is live, we’re ready to share more details about the results review group; the submission, review, and publication cycles; and the schedule for the first three months.

The results review group
The CloudXPRT results review group will serve as a sanity check and a forum for comments on each month’s submissions. All registered BenchmarkXPRT Development Community members who wish to participate in the review process can join the group by contacting us via email. We’ll confirm receipt of your request and add you to the review group mailing list. Any non-members who would like to join the review group can contact us and we’ll help you become community members.

The submission, review, and publication cycle
We will update the CloudXPRT results database once a month on a published schedule. While testers can submit results through the CloudXPRT results submission page at any time, two weeks prior to each publication date, we will close submissions for that review cycle. One week prior to each publication date, we will email details of that month’s submissions to the results review group, along with the deadline for sending post-publication feedback.

Schedule for the first three publication cycles
We will publish results to the database on the last business day of each month and will close the submission window at 11:59 PM on the business day that falls two weeks earlier (with occasional adjustments for holidays). The schedule will be available at least six months in advance on CloudXPRT.com.

The schedule for the first three cycles is as follows:

July
Submission deadline: Friday 7/17/20
Publication date: Friday 7/31/20
August
Submission deadline: Monday 8/17/20
Publication date: Monday 8/31/20
September
Submission deadline: Wednesday 9/16/20
Publication date: Wednesday 9/30/20

As a reminder, members of the tech press, vendors, and other testers are free to publish CloudXPRT results at any time. We may choose to add such results to our database on the monthly publication date, after first vetting them.

We look forward to reviewing the first batch of results! If you have any questions about CloudXPRT or the results submission or review process, let us know!

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Cloud, CloudXPRT, Datacenter, results, results submission | Tagged , , , , , |

BenchmarkXPRT releases a preview of CloudXPRT, a benchmark for measuring the performance of cloud-first applications deployed on modern on-prem or hosted IaaS platforms

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on June 11, 2020

Durham, NC, June 10 —Principled Technologies and the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community release the CloudXPRT Preview, a free benchmark that can accurately measure the performance of modern, cloud-first applications deployed on modern infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platforms, whether those platforms are paired with on-premises (datacenter), private cloud, or public cloud deployments.

The CloudXPRT Preview includes web microservices and data analytics workloads. Testers can use metrics from both workloads to compare IaaS stack (both hardware and software) performance and to evaluate whether any given stack is capable of meeting SLA thresholds. CloudXPRT can be configured to run on local datacenter, AmazonWeb Services™, Google Cloud Platform™, or Microsoft Azure™ deployments.

“Existing datacenter benchmarks don’t make it easy to understand how applications will perform on a given IaaS infrastructure,” said Bill Catchings, co-founder of Principled Technologies, which administers the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community. “CloudXPRT uses cloud-native components on a hardware and software stack to provide end-to-end performance metrics that allow users to choose the best configuration for their business.”

The CloudXPRT Preview provides OEMs, the tech press, vendors, and other testers with an opportunity to work with CloudXPRT directly and shape the future of the benchmark with their feedback. Testers may also freely access the CloudXPRT source code.

CloudXPRT is part of the BenchmarkXPRT suite of performance evaluation tools, which includes AIXPRT, WebXPRT, CrXPRT, TouchXPRT, HDXPRT, and MobileXPRT. The XPRTs help users get the facts before they buy, use, or evaluate tech products such as servers, computers, and tablets/phones.

To learn more about the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, go to www.BenchmarkXPRT.com or contact a BenchmarkXPRT Development Community representative directly by sending a message to BenchmarkXPRTsupport@PrincipledTechnologies.com.

About Principled Technologies, Inc.
Principled Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of technology marketing, as well as learning and development services. It administers the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community.

Principled Technologies, Inc. is located in Durham, North Carolina, USA. For more information, please visit www.PrincipledTechnologies.com.

Company Contact
Justin Greene
BenchmarkXPRT Development Community
Principled Technologies, Inc.
1007 Slater Road, Ste. 300
Durham, NC 27704
BenchmarkXPRTsupport@PrincipledTechnologies.com

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT, Cloud, CloudXPRT, data analytics, Performance benchmarking, Press Releases, Server, Servers, web microservices | Tagged , , , , , , , , |

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