The hot story in the news this week is Volkswagen's reported brazen cheating in diesel engine emissions testing. This brought to mind a host of similar occurrences, from Samsung/HTC cheating at benchmarks to alleged cheating in SPC enterprise storage performance testing. Cynics say we should just assume we're being cheated, but is this a world in which we want to … [Read more...] about Your Mileage May Vary: Lies, Damn Lies, and Benchmarks
SPC-1
In Praise of Performance Comparisons
I've long been critical of poorly-executed performance comparisons and the "fastest is always best" mentality behind them. Who really cares if a Honda minivan accelerates quicker than a Toyota when no real-world owner will ever keep the accelerator floored from stop to highway speed? The same goes for enterprise gear: Is an over-subscribed backplane really a problem when most … [Read more...] about In Praise of Performance Comparisons