TPC, Where Art Thou?

Performance has and still is perceived by customers as one of the main differentiators of computer systems. Hence, having access to widely accepted, objective and verifiable performance data is paramount for customers in making informed buying decisions. The last ten years have seen the rise of many new DBMSs. With them came a flurry of benchmark definitions. Even if technically sound, these benchmarks alone cannot achieve the goal of delivering widely accepted, objective and verifiable performance data. In addition they need to be agreed upon by a large body of vendors, and they need an independent oversight authority that assures correctness of their results. There are two major standard organizations that work on achieving these goals: Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) and Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC). This article centers around the TPC, its history, challenges and steps it is taking to stay relevant in the years ahead.