SPEC - Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation

The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) is a non-profit corporation formed to establish, maintain and endorse a standardized set of relevant benchmarks that can be applied to the newest generation of high-performance computers. SPEC develops benchmark suites and also reviews and publishes submitted results from our member organizations and other benchmark licensees.

SPEC will be closed on Monday, February 18th, 2013 for President's Day.

What's New:

01/25/2013: - SPEC's Research Group has selected Shicong Meng from the Georgia Institute of Technology as the winner of the 2012 SPEC Distinguished Dissertation Award, which will be awarded at the ICPE 2013 International Conference. The Distinguished Dissertation Award is given to a Ph.D. student whose thesis is regarded to be an exceptional, innovative contribution in the scope of the SPEC Research Group.

01/23/2013: - SPEC announces the release of SPECjbb2013, developed from the ground up to measure performance based on the latest Java application features. It is expected to be used widely by all those interested in Java server performance, including JVM vendors, hardware developers, Java application developers, researchers and members of the academic community. New features include support for multiple run configurations, exercise of new Java 7 features, and support for virtualization and cloud environments.

01/23/2013: - The SERT Demo session is currently in progress (1:30 PM - 4:00 PM Central time). If you would like to attend the demo, please register and the WebEx login information will be sent to you.

12/13/2012: - An updated PTDaemon, V1.5.0 is now available. This release adds support for multichannel and multiphase measurements on suitably configured power analyzers, together with a comprehensive set of fixes and enhancements across the accepted set of power analyzers. SPECpower_ssj2008 users are encouraged to download and apply the update. All SPECpower_ssj2008 submissions on or after June 12th, 2013 must be made with v1.5.0 of PTDaemon.

12/11/2012: - A SERT Training/Demo session will be run in conjunction with the SPEC Annual and Joint Meeting in Austin, TX. This session will take place on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 from 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM CST at the Austin Convention Center. You must register in order to attend the demo. Upon completion of the session, attendees will receive a Certificate of Participation.

11/14/2012: - A new Workstation Performance Characterization (SPECwpc) project group has become part of SPEC's Graphics and Workstation Performance Group (SPEC/GWPG). SPECwpc joins two other benchmarking project groups — SPECapc and SPECgpc — operating under the SPEC/GWPG umbrella. The newest SPEC/GWPG project group is creating a benchmark that measures the performance of workstations running algorithms used in popular applications, but without requiring the full application and associated licensing to be installed on the system under test. Visit the SPECwpc overview page for more information.

11/13/2012: - Alan Adamson, member of the SPEC Board of Directors, passed away on October 31, 2012. In addition to his role as a board member, Alan had served as chair of the Java subcommittee and the OSG Steering Committee. He was also instrumental in the establishment of the SPEC Research Group and the ICPE series of joint conferences with ACM.

10/26/2012: - SPEC's Research Group has formed a new working group called "Benchmarking Architectures for Intrusion Detection in Virtualized Environments" whose mission is to foster and to facilitate innovative research in computer system and network intrusion detection, with special attention given to benchmarking intrusion detection systems in virtualized cloud environments. Visit the official website of the group for further information.

10/17/2012: - SPEC's High-Performance Group (SPEC/HPG) has released an updated benchmark for measuring performance using applications based on the OpenMP 3.1 standard for shared-memory parallel processing. The benchmark, called SPEC OMP2012, includes an optional metric for measuring energy consumption. Existing licensees of the OMP2001 benchmark qualify for discounted upgrade pricing to OMP2012.

09/11/2012: - SPEC's Research Group, as part of their mission to foster the exchange of knowledge and experiences between industry and academia in the field of quantitative system evaluation and analysis, has published the first issue of the Research Group Newsletter. This regular publication will provide you with information on latest developments, news and announcements relevant to the benchmarking and quantitative system evaluation communities.

08/08/2012: - SPECapc announces the release of the SPECapc for Autodesk Maya 2012 benchmark. The benchmark software is available as a free download for Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit platforms.

07/26/2012: - SPECpower_ssj2008 V1.12 is now available. This is a point release which includes updates to the reporter, PTDaemon, and support for a new analyzer. For a list of the latest changes, see the release notes. Starting December 11, 2012, all results must be published using V1.12. Current licensees of previous versions of the software are eligible to receive a free upgrade to V1.12 by contacting SPEC.

07/18/2012: - Call for Papers, ICPE 2013: SPEC announces a call for papers for the 4th ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering, to be held in Prague, Czech Republic, on April 21-24, 2013. Submissions are invited in any of five tracks: Research; Industrial Applications and Experience; Posters and Demos; Tutorials; and Work-in-Progress and Vision Papers. Paper submission dates vary by track; please see the ICPE website for further details.

06/13/2012: - SPEC's Open Systems Group (OSG) has formed a new Cloud group to work in cooperation with other SPEC committees and subcommittees to define cloud benchmark methodologies, determine and recommend application workloads, identify cloud metrics for existing SPEC benchmarks, and develop new cloud benchmarks. Participation from cloud providers and users is welcomed.

06/12/2012: - SPEC is seeking beta testers for the Server Efficiency Rating Tool. Measurement and reporting via the SERT will be required by the United States Environmental Protection Agency's ENERGY STAR for Servers v2.0 specification. SERT Beta-2 testing is open to anyone who has a SPEC-accepted power analyzer and temperature sensor, signs a beta license, and commits to providing feedback.

06/04/2012: - SPEC's Application Performance Characterization project group announces the release of SPECapc for PTC Creo® 2.0. The benchmark provides eight workflows that exercise all aspects of system performance when running the popular application. Composite scores are generated for graphics, shaded graphics, wireframe graphics, CPU and I/O performance.

05/23/2012: - An updated PTDaemon, V1.4.2, for SPECpower_ssj2008 has been released. SPECpower_ssj2008 users are encouraged to download and apply the update. All SPECpower_ssj2008 submissions on or after November 14th, 2012 must be made with v1.4.2 of PTDaemon. No further SPECpower_ssj2008 submissions with Solaris running on either an x86 or SPARC-based Controller will be accepted after August 8th, 2012.

04/11/2012: - SPEC's Application Performance Characterization (SPECapc) project group has released SPECapc for Siemens NX 6. The benchmark is freely available for download.

04/05/2012: - SPECjEnterprise2010 v1.03 is now available. This update includes performance-neutral changes to address known issues. Beginning May 1, 2012, all result submissions must be made using version 1.03. Licensees of earlier versions of the SPECjEnterprise2010 software may request a free update to 1.03 by contacting SPEC.

03/26/2012: - ICPE 2012, the Third ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering, will be held April 22-25 in Boston, MA. Advance registration for the technical program and tutorials ends on April 15.

[Older items can be found in the archive.]