A Dependability Benchmark for OLTP Application Environments

Abstract

This chapter proposes a new dependability benchmark for on-line transaction processing (OLTP) systems-the DBench-OLTP dependability benchmark. The goal of this benchmark is to provide a practical way to measure both performance and dependability features of OLTP systems. These systems constitute the kernel of the information systems used today to support the daily operations of most of the businesses and comprise some of the best examples of business-critical applications. This benchmark specifies the measures and all the steps required to evaluate both the performance and key dependability features of OLTP systems. The DBench-OLTP uses the basic setup, the workload, and the performance measures specified in the TPC-C performance benchmark, and adds two new elements: (1) measures related to dependability; and (2) a faultload based on operator faults. The chapter ends with a discussion on the effort required to run the DBench-OLTP dependability benchmark. From the indicators collected during this work, it can be observed that effort is not an obstacle for not using this kind of tools on small and medium size transactional systems evaluation and comparison.