Atlanta, Georgia-based consultant Enabling Technologies Group has spun out a separate company, Client/Server Labs Inc, to operate a client-server benchmark developed by IBM Corp’s AS/400 division called RPMark. IBM handed the suite to Enabling Technologies last month – although the move was planned last year – when it realised that no-one was going to take a Blue benchmark seriously. IBM used Reference Platform Mark – RPMark – to run AS/400s off against Hewlett-Packard Co HP 9000 Unix and Compaq Computer Corp Windows NT servers at Comdex last year. The new Client/Server Labs says its test suite is totally vendor-independent and although the original test suite came from IBM, it says it has already changed the benchmark considerably, and adds that IBM no longer has any rights over the test. As for the need for yet another benchmark, Client/Server Labs says the RPMark is the first benchmark that evaluates complete client-server system performance, testing transaction processing, file serving and decision support (with personal computers initiating queries on the server over Open Database Connectivity) and is based on a subset of the TPC-C benchmark, modified for additional client support. Client/Server Labs says RPMark gives end users a true indication of server performance. The composite rating, the RPMark, is based on the weighted average of the three workloads, the higher the rating, the better the performance. It says it has won Gartner Group and the Aberdeen Group over to RPMark. A standard test of an out-of-the-box server costs $12,500 but the company says it will do customised tests for vendors. IBM’s AS/400 division developed the thing because it wanted to be taken seriously in the client-server world.
