Once again, Proud to Be First – IoT Performance

Over the past three decades, industry standard bodies like the TPC and SPEC have developed several standards for performance benchmarking. These standards have been a significant driving force behind the development of faster, less expensive, and more energy efficient systems. The two most influential database benchmark standards have been: TPC-C, the industry standard for benchmarking transaction processing systems, and TPC-D and its successor TPC-H, the industry standard for benchmarking decision support systems. The first TPC-C result1 was published in 1992 and the first TPC-D result2 was published in 1997, both by IBM; the first TPC-H result3  was published in 1999 by Sun.  Since then, over thousand publications and hundreds of research papers have helped to drive continuous innovation in relational database management systems, following Moore’s postulation.

The industry and technology landscapes have changed, and IT has moved far beyond traditional transaction processing and data warehousing to big data and analytics. In response, the TPC created TPCx-HS, the industry’s first standard for benchmarking big data systems. If you haven’t been following the activities in the database world then you might think that the first TPCx-HS result was published by one of the traditional vendors. It wasn’t. Cisco published the first TPCx-HS result4 in 2015, demonstrating their leadership in the big data analytics space with the Cisco UCS platform.

With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), the world is getting more and more connected. The IoT touches everything: from large scale industries and businesses down to the everyday lives of individuals. There has been a lot of confusion around the capabilities of IoT platforms. In order to help standardize the systems in a controlled, disciplined way, the TPC developed TPCx-IoT, the industry’s first standard for benchmarking IoT gateway systems.

I am proud to announce the publication of the first-ever TPCx-IoT result. The tested platform consists of the Cisco UCS Mini, a platform designed for IoT gateways and branch offices, and four Cisco B200 blades. Read the full report here. This first-ever TPCx-IoT result is another demonstration of Cisco’s commitment to industry standards, enabling fair competition and stimulating the creation of innovative solutions.

1First: 54 tpmC, $188,562/tpmC, 12/1995, IBM. Fastest as of today: 30,249,688 tpmC, $1.01/tpmC, 12/2010, Oracle
2First: 84 QthD, $52,170/QphD, IBM, 09/1992, IBM
3First: 1,280 QthH, $816/QphD, @100GB, Sun, 09/1999, Sun. Fastest as of today: 11,612,395 QphH, $0.37/QphH @100TB, 9/2014, Dell
4First: 5.07 HSph,$121,231.76/HSph @1TB, 1/2015, Cisco. Fastest as of today: 23.42 HSph, $36,800/HSph @30TB, 10/2015, Cisco