tpcw v1.8 (PDF)

TPC BENCHMARKTM W
(Web Commerce)
Specification
Version 1.8
Feb 19, 2002

Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC)
650 N. Winchester Blvd, Suite 1
San Jose, CA 95128, USA
Phone (408) 295-8894
Fax (408) 271-6648
http://www.tpc.org
e-mail:admin@tpc.org
© 1993 - 2000 Transaction Processing Performance Council

Acknowledgments
Developing a TPC benchmark for a new environment requires a huge effort to conceptualize, research,
specify, review, prototype and verify the benchmark.
The TPC-W subcommittee would like to acknowledge the contributions made by the many members
during the development of the benchmark specification. It has taken the dedicated efforts of people
across many companies, often in addition to their regular duties.
The list of significant contributors includes Dave McCutcheon, Carol Orange, Bhagyam Moses,
Sadhana Kyathappala, Shanti Subramanian, Francois Raab, Lorna Livingtree, Jerrold Buggert, Richard
Saunders, Steve Morris, Burzin Patel, Judi Bank, Charles Levine, Jim Enright, Wayne Smith, Jack
Stephens, Neel Jain, Dave Guimbellot, Gerson Finlev, Greg Darnell, Son Luong, Tom Colati, Andrew
Eisenberg, Alan Chan, Karl Huppler, Dino Quintero, Basker Shanmugam, Rambabu Lolabattu and
Tony Petrossian.

TPC Membership
(as of December, 1999)
Acer, Inc.
Angara Database Software, Inc.
BEA Systems, Inc.
Bull S.A.
Compaq Computer Corp
Dell Computers Corp.
Electronic Data Systems Corp.
EMC Corp.
Fujitsu Ltd.
Hewlett-Packard Co.
Hitachi Ltd.

IBM Corp.
Informix Software
Intel Corp.
ITOM International
Microsoft Corp.
Mylex Corp.
NCR Corp.
NEC Systems Laboratory
Netscape Corp.
OKI Electric Industry

Oracle Corp.
Progress Software Corp.
Santa Cruz Operation Inc.
Siemens AG
Silicon Graphics Inc.
Sun Microsystems Inc.
Sybase Inc.
Toshiba Corp.
Unisys Corp.
White Cross Systems Inc.

Trademarks and Legal Notices
TPC Benchmark™, TPC-W, WIPS, WIPSo and WIPSb are trademarks of the Transaction Processing
Performance Council.
All parties are granted permission to copy and distribute to any party without fee all or part of this
material provided that: 1) copying and distribution is done for the primary purpose of disseminating
TPC material; 2) the TPC copyright notice, the title of the publication, and its date appear, and notice is
given that copying is by permission of the Transaction Processing Performance Council.
Parties wishing to copy and distribute TPC materials other than for the purposes outlined above
(including incorporating TPC material in a non-TPC document, specification or report), must secure
the TPC's written permission.

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Document History
November 19, 1999 Draft 5.5

Review draft prior to approval by mail ballot

December. 9, 1999

Version 1.0

Mail ballot version of standard benchmark

May 10, 2000

Version 1.01A Further committee revisions from review comments up through
Clause 2.6.3.3

February 7, 2001

Version 1.3.1

Clarified requirements of the separate search queries.
Modified reporting and graphing requirements for aggregated
systems.

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Table of Contents
Clause 0 - PREAMBLE
0.1
0.2

1

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................................. 1
GENERAL IMPLEMENTATION GUIDELINES ........................................................................................................................... 2

Clause 1 - WEB OBJECT & LOGICAL DATABASE DESIGN
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
1.8

4

BUSINESS AND APPLICATION ENVIRONMENT ..................................................................................................................... 4
DEFINITION OF TERMS ................................................................................................................................................................. 5
DATABASE ENTITIES , RELATIONSHIPS , AND CHARACTERISTICS ................................................................................... 6
TABLE LAYOUTS .........................................................................................................................................................................76
W EB OBJECTS , CHARACTERISTICS AND RELATIONSHIP WITH DATABASE........................................................... 1110
IMPLEMENTATION RULES ................................................................................................................................................... 1211
INTEGRITY RULES .................................................................................................................................................................. 1412
DATA ACCESS TRANSPARENCY REQUIREMENTS ........................................................................................................ 1412

Clause 2 - WEB INTERACTIONS AND WORKLOAD PROFILE
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
2.8
2.9
2.10
2.11
2.12
2.13
2.14
2.15
2.16

1514

DEFINITION OF TERMS .......................................................................................................................................................... 1514
IMPLEMENTATION RULES ................................................................................................................................................... 1715
HOME W EB INTERACTION .................................................................................................................................................. 2321
SHOPPING CART W EB INTERACTION............................................................................................................................... 2724
CUSTOMER REGISTRATION W EB INTERACTION ........................................................................................................... 3129
BUY REQUEST W EB INTERACTION.................................................................................................................................... 3432
BUY CONFIRM W EB INTERACTION.................................................................................................................................... 4139
ORDER INQUIRY W EB INTERACTION ................................................................................................................................ 4644
ORDER DISPLAY W EB INTERACTION................................................................................................................................ 4846
SEARCH REQUEST W EB INTERACTION............................................................................................................................ 5250
SEARCH RESULT W EB INTERACTION............................................................................................................................... 5452
NEW PRODUCTS W EB INTERACTION............................................................................................................................... 5755
BEST SELLERS W EB INTERACTION ................................................................................................................................... 6058
PRODUCT DETAIL W EB INTERACTION............................................................................................................................. 6361
ADMIN REQUEST W EB INTERACTION ............................................................................................................................. 6664
ADMIN CONFIRM W EB INTERACTION ............................................................................................................................. 6967

Clause 3 - DATABASE TRANSACTION AND SYSTEM PROPERTIES
3.1
3.2

7371

DATABASE TRANSACTION ACID PROPERTIES .............................................................................................................. 7371
W EB PAGE CONSISTENCY REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................................................... 8279

Clause 4 - SCALING AND DATABASE POPULATION
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
4.7
4.8

8481

GENERAL SCALING RULE.................................................................................................................................................... 8481
SCALING REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................................................................................... 8481
CONFIGURATION.................................................................................................................................................................... 8582
180-DAY SPACE COMPUTATION ....................................................................................................................................... 8683
W EB SERVER ACCESS LOG REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................................................. 8683
DATABASE POPULATION .................................................................................................................................................... 8784
TABLE POPULATION REQUIREMENTS .............................................................................................................................. 9188
WGEN DATA POPULATION GENERATOR ...................................................................................................................... 9491

Clause 5 - PERFORMANCE METRICS AND RESPONSE TIME
5.1

9693

DEFINITION OF TERMS .......................................................................................................................................................... 9693
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5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
5.6
5.7

W EB INTERACTION MIXES .................................................................................................................................................. 9794
THINK TIME AND RESPONSE TIME.................................................................................................................................10399
COMPUTATION OF THROUGHPUT RATING ................................................................................................................104100
MEASUREMENT INTERVAL REQUIREMENTS ..............................................................................................................105101
REQUIRED REPORTING .....................................................................................................................................................108104
ADDITIONAL PERFORMANCE STATISTICS ..................................................................................................................108104

Clause 6 - SUT, RBE AND NETWORK DEFINITIONS
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
6.6
6.7

Clause 7 - PRICING
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4

122118

PRICING METHODOLOGY................................................................................................................................................122118
PRICED SYSTEM ..................................................................................................................................................................124120
MAINTENANCE ..................................................................................................................................................................125121
REQUIRED REPORTING .....................................................................................................................................................126122

Clause 8 - FULL DISCLOSURE REPORT
8.1
8.2
8.3
8.4
8.5
8.6
8.7
8.8
8.9
8.10
8.11
8.12

143138

GENERAL RULES ................................................................................................................................................................143138
AUDITOR’S CHECK LIST ...................................................................................................................................................143138

Appendix A - CUSTOMER EVENT DIAGRAM
A.1
A.2
A.3

149144

INTRODUCTORY EXPLANATIONS ...................................................................................................................................149144
EVENT DIAGRAM 1............................................................................................................................................................150145
EVENT DIAGRAM 2............................................................................................................................................................151146

Appendix B - SHOPPING STATE DIAGRAMS
B.1
B.2
B.3
B.4

127123

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS ..............................................................................................................................................127123
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ......................................................................................................................................................128124
CLAUSE 1 - W EB OBJECT AND LOGICAL DATABASE DESIGN ..............................................................................131127
CLAUSE 2 - W EB INTERACTIONS AND W ORKLOAD ...............................................................................................132128
CLAUSE 3 - DATABASE TRANSACTION AND SYSTEM PROPERTIES ....................................................................132128
CLAUSE 4 - SCALING AND DATABASE POPULATION .............................................................................................132128
CLAUSE 5 PERFORMANCE METRICS AND RESPONSE TIMES ................................................................................133129
CLAUSE 6 - SUT, RBE AND NETWORK ........................................................................................................................136132
CLAUSE 7 - PRICING ..........................................................................................................................................................139134
CLAUSE 9 - AUDIT RELATED ITEMS .............................................................................................................................140135
AVAILABILITY OF THE FULL DISCLOSURE REPORT ..................................................................................................140135
REVISIONS TO THE FULL DISCLOSURE REPORT ........................................................................................................140135

Clause 9 - AUDIT
9.1
9.2

114110

REMOTE BROWSER EMULATOR (RBE) .........................................................................................................................114110
USER SESSION DURATION ...............................................................................................................................................115111
SYSTEM UNDER TEST (SUT)...........................................................................................................................................116112
PAYMENT GATEWAY EMULATOR (PGE) .....................................................................................................................118114
MODEL OF THE COMPLETE TESTED SYSTEM ............................................................................................................119115
COMMUNICATIONS INTERFACES DEFINITIONS .........................................................................................................119115
OPERATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MERCHANT COMMERCE APPLICATION......................................120116

152147

INTRODUCTORY EXPLANATIONS ...................................................................................................................................152147
THE STATE V ALUES ..........................................................................................................................................................152147
THE STATE TRANSITION DIAGRAM ..............................................................................................................................153148
COMMUNICATION BETWEEN RBE AND SUT OF EXISTENCE OF SHOPPING SESSION .....................................154149

Appendix C - INTRODUCTION TO SSL
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C.1
C.2
C.3
C.4

OVERVIEW ...........................................................................................................................................................................155150
SSL V3 SPECIFICATIONS ..................................................................................................................................................156150
SSL V3 IMPLEMENTATION TOOLKITS .........................................................................................................................156151
OBTAINING A SERVER DIGITAL CERTIFICATE FOR TESTING ..................................................................................156151

Appendix D - DATABASE POPULATION RATIONALE
D.1
D.2

158152

DERIVATION OF 2880 CUSTOMERS PER BROWSER...................................................................................................158152
USING 8 HRS OF PEAK THROUGHPUT TO COMPUTE STORAGE............................................................................158152

Appendix E - SAMPLE PSEUDO-CODE

159153

Appendix F - SAMPLE HTML CODE

164158

F.1
F.2
F.3
F.4
F.5
F.6
F.7
F.8
F.9
F.10
F.11
F.12
F.13
F.14

ADMIN CONFIRM ...............................................................................................................................................................164158
ADMIN REQUEST ...............................................................................................................................................................164158
BEST SELLERS .....................................................................................................................................................................165159
BUY CONFIRM .....................................................................................................................................................................169162
BUY REQUEST .....................................................................................................................................................................171163
CUSTOMER REGISTRATION.............................................................................................................................................173165
HOME ....................................................................................................................................................................................175167
NEW PRODUCTS ................................................................................................................................................................178170
ORDER DISPLAY .................................................................................................................................................................183173
ORDER INQUIRY ..................................................................................................................................................................185175
PRODUCT DETAIL ..............................................................................................................................................................185175
SEARCH REQUEST .............................................................................................................................................................186176
SEARCH RESULTS ..............................................................................................................................................................187176
SHOPPING CART ................................................................................................................................................................188177

Appendix G - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
G.1
G.2
G.3

IMPLEMENTATION OVERVIEW PAGE ..........................................................................................................................190179
PRICING PAGE ....................................................................................................................................................................193182
NUMERICAL QUANTITIES SUMMARY PAGE ...............................................................................................................194183

Appendix H - WGEN UTILITY
H.1
H.2
H.3
H.4
H.5

195184

DESCRIPTION.......................................................................................................................................................................195184
USING WGEN ....................................................................................................................................................................195184
COMMAND LINE OPTIONS .............................................................................................................................................196185
ENVIRONMENT V ARIABLES ............................................................................................................................................196185
WGEN OUTPUT .................................................................................................................................................................197186

Appendix I - STANDARD REFERENCES
I.1
I.2

190179

200189

INTERNET RFCS .................................................................................................................................................................200189
COMMON LOG FORMAT .................................................................................................................................................200189

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Clause 0 - PREAMBLE

0.1

Introduction
TPC Benchmark™ W (TPC-W) is a transactional web benchmark. The workload is performed in a
controlled internet commerce environment that simulates the activities of a business oriented
transactional web server. The workload exercises a breadth of system com ponents associated with such
environments, which are characterized by:
?

Multiple on-line browser sessions

?

Dynamic page generation with database access and update

?

Consistent web objects

?

The simultaneous execution of multiple transaction types that span a breadth of complexity

?

On-line transaction execution modes

?

Databases consisting of many tables with a wide variety of sizes, attributes, and relationships

?

Transaction integrity (ACID properties)

?

Contention on data access and update

The performance metric reported by TPC-W is the number of web interactions processed per second.
Multiple web interactions are used to simulate the activity of a retail store, and each interaction is subject
to a response time constraint. The store size is chosen from among a set of given scale factors, which is the
number of Items in inventory and varies from 1,000 items to 10,000,000 items. The performance metric for
this benchmark is expressed in Web Interactions Per Second at a tested scale factor expressed by
WIPS@scale factor where scale factor is the number of items in the ITEM table. For example
123WIPS@100,000. All references to WIPS in this specification mean WIPS@scale factor.
TPC-W simulates three different profiles by varying the ratio of browse to buy: primarily shopping
(WIPS), browsing (WIPSb) and web-based ordering (WIPSo). All references to WIPS (WIPSb, WIPSo)
results must include the primary metrics, which are: the WIPS rate, the associated price per WIPS
($/WIPS), and the availability date of the priced configuration.
The following functions, if used in the benchmark, must be provided by commercially available products
and be transparent to the Application Program (See Clauses 1.2.10 and 2.2.22):
?

Multiplexing

?

Routing

?

Load Balancing

?

Caching (see Clause 6.3.3.1)

Comment: The transparency requirement means that the application must not have code that directly
references these functions during the measurement interval. To implement the electronic commerce
function one may use commercially available products or implementation specific programs.
The electronic commerce function must include, at minimum, the following capabilities as defined in this
specification:
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?

Secure Socket Layer (SSL)

?

Shopping Cart

?

Credit Card Verification

?

Secure on-line payment authorization

Although these specifications express implementation in terms of a relational data model with a
conventional locking scheme, the database may be implemented using any commercially available
database management system (DBMS), database server, file system, or other data repository that provides
a functionally equivalent implementation. The terms "table", "row", and "column" are used in this
document only as examples of logical data structures.
TPC-W uses terminology and metrics that are similar to other benchmarks originated by the TPC or
others. Such similarity in terminology does not in any way imply that TPC-W results are comparable to
other benchmarks. The only benchmark results comparable to TPC-W are other TPC-W results with the
appropriate revision and same scale factor.
Despite the fact that this benchmark offers a rich environment that emulates many web browsing and
web-based ordering applications, this benchmark does not reflect the entire range of web server
requirements. In addition, the extent to which a customer can achieve the results reported by a vendor is
highly dependent on how closely TPC-W approximates the customer application. The relative
performance of systems derived from this benchmark does not necessarily hold for other workloads or
environments. Extrapolations to any other environment are not recommended.
Benchmark results are highly dependent upon workload, specific application requirements, systems
design, and implementation. Relative system performance will vary as a result of these and other factors.
Therefore, TPC-W should not be used as a substitute for a specific customer application benchmarking
when critical capacity planning and/or product evaluation decisions are contemplated.
Benchmark sponsors are permitted several possible system designs, insofar as they adhere to the model
described and pictorially illustrated in Clause 6. A Full Disclosure Report of the implementation details, as
specified in Clause 8, must be made available along with the reported results.
Comment: While separated from the main text for readability, comments are a part of the standard and
are enforced. However, the sample programs included as Appendix E, the summary statements included
as Appendix G, and the numerical quantities summary, included as Appendix G, are provided only as
examples and are specifically not part of this standard.

0.2

General Implementation Guidelines
The purpose of TPC benchmarks is to provide relevant, objective performance data to industry users. To
achieve that purpose, TPC benchmark specifications require that benchmark tests be implemented with
systems, products, technologies and pricing that:
?

Are generally available to users.

?

Are relevant to the market segment that the individual TPC benchmark models or represents (e.g.
TPC-W models and represents high-volume, complex web browsing and web-based ordering
environments).

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?

A significant number of users in the market segment the benchmark models or represents would
plausibly implement.

The use of new systems, products, technologies (hardware or software), and pricing is encouraged so long
as they meet the requirements above. Specifically prohibited are benchmark systems, products,
technologies, pricing, and implementations whose primary purpose is performance optimization of TPC
benchmark results w ithout any corresponding applicability to real-world applications and environments.
In other words, all "benchmark special" implementations that improve benchmark results but not realworld performance or pricing, are prohibited.
The following characteristics should be used as a guide to judge whether a particular implementation is a
benchmark special. It is not required that each point below be met, but that the cumulative weight of the
evidence be considered to identify an unacceptable implementation. Absolute certainty or certainty
beyond a reasonable doubt is not required to make a judgment on this complex issue. The question that
must be answered is this: based on the available evidence, does the clear preponderance (the greater share
or weight) of evidence indicate that this implementation is a benchmark special?
The following characteristics should be used to judge whether a particular implementation is a
benchmark special:
a) Is the implementation generally available, documented, and supported?
b) Does the implementation have significant restrictions on its use or applicability that limits its use
beyond TPC benchmarks?
c)

Is the implementation or part of the implementation poorly integrated into the larger product?

d) Does the implementation take special advantage of the limited nature of TPC benchmarks (e.g.,
transaction profile, transaction mix, transaction concurrency and/or contention, transaction isolation)
in a manner that would not be generally applicable to the environment the benchmark represents?
e)

Is the use of the implementation discouraged by the vendor? (This includes failing to promote the
implementation in a manner similar to other products and technologies.)

f)

Does the implementation require uncommon sophistication on the part of the end-user, programmer,
or system administrator?

g) Is the pricing unusual or non-customary for the vendor or unusual or non -customary to normal
business practices? The following pricing practices are suspect:
?

Availability of a discount to a small subset of possible customers.

?

Discounts documented in an unusual or non-customary manner.

?

Discounts that exceed 25% on small quantities and 50% on large quantities.

?

Pricing featured as a close-out or one-time special.

?

Unusual or non-customary restrictions on transferability of product , warranty or maintenance on
discounted items.

h) Is the implementation being used (including beta) or purchased by end-users in the market area the
benchmark represents? How many? Multiple sites? If the implementation is not currently being used
by end-users, is there any evidence to indicate that it will be used by a significant number of users?

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