The initial release focuses on server performance for static Web pages, measuring the ability to service HTTP requests. SPECweb96 uses one or more clients to send the HTTP requests to the server, and the software then measures the response time for each request. At the end of a run, it calculates a metric based on overall throughput measured as maximum benchmark operations per second. Initial SPECweb96 results are currently available on SPEC's Web site (http://www.specbench.org/osg/web96/), and the software will have its public release by the end of August.
According to a company spokesperson, the SPECweb96 workload simulates the accesses to a Web service provider where the server supports the home pages of several different organizations. The workload is based on analyses of server logs from a variety of popular Internet servers, as well as some smaller sites. To further validate the workload, data from the analyses was compared to logs from Netscape and CommerceNet.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this development is the fact of its having happened at all, which indicates that the Internet and Web-related technologies and products are reaching new levels of maturity that require this kind of benchmarking. We will continue to watch for further developments in the field.