Introduction of project

                 Introduction For TPC-C Benchmark Project

• Backgroud 

  After first few weeks reading of TPC-C benchmark's materials I get a initial understanding what is TPC-C about.
  TPC-C(The Transaction Processing Performance Council) is about to approve the third in its series of benchmarks which measure the performance and price/performance of transaction processing systems. Like TPC-A, the TPC's first benchmark, the new TPC Benchmark C, or TPC-C, is an on-line transaction processing (OLTP) benchmark. However, TPC-C is different and more complex than TPC-A because of its multiple transaction types, more complex database, and overall execution structure. 
  The TPC-C benchmark is a popular yardstick for comparing OLTP performance on various hardware and software configurations.

• Goal

The goal of TPC benchmarks is to define a set of functional requirements that can be run on any transaction processing system, regardless of hardware or operating system.
It’s different to most other benchmarks where test sponsors are limited to comparing machines that run on just one operating system or benchmarks that execute the same set of software instructions.

• The benchmark model

As an OLTP system benchmark, TPC-C simulates a complete environment where a population of terminal operators executes transactions against a database.The benchmark is centered around the principal activities (transactions) of an order-entry environment.
These transactions include 

1.      New Oder transaction(~45%) : a new order entered into the database
2.      Payment transaction (~43%) : a payment recorded as received from a customer
3.      Order Status transaction(~5%) : an inquiry as to whether an order has been processed.
4.      Stock Level transaction(~5%): an inquiry as to what stocked items have a low inventory
5.      Delivery transaction(~5%) : an item is removed from inventory and the status of the order is updated

• Database sizing

The TPC-C database is scaled according to the number of warehouses that a simulated corporation

maintains, which is represented by the “warehouse” table in the database. The rest of the TPC-C

database (with the exception of the item table) is scaled based upon the number of rows in the

warehouse table. The number of simulated users running transactions against the TPC-C database is

10 times the number of rows in the warehouse table.

The total disk space required for a TPC-C database is usually several hundred or even several

thousand gigabytes, and the TPC-C specification requires that enough space be present on the system

for 60 days of growth at top throughput. A typical TPC-C system will have many times over the

required disk space since more disk spindles result in higher database I/O performance.

 

• Conclusion

The TPC-C benchmark is an ideal benchmark for measuring system OLTP performance. Simple metrics and an easily understandable workload using only 5 transactions and 9 database tables make it easy to use the TPC-C benchmark to compare systems, platforms, DBMS systems and Operating Systems.Benchmark results are audited by a third party to insure compliance with the TPC-C specification and are further reviewed by the Transaction Processing Performance Council. The TPC-C benchmark has a scalable workload from 1 processor to above 64 processors, making it the industry standard benchmark to measure system OLTP performance.

• For more information:

      www.tpc.org