Performance Evaluation of E-Commerce Servers Using the TPC-W Benchmark

The performance of servers is currently a major factor in the success of electronic commerce services. These services and applications integrate two well-known technologies into the server: web servers operate as an interface with the clients, and database servers provide the information required in the transactions. There are well-established benchmarking technologies for both kinds of servers, but there is as yet little research into the combination of the two to provide particular services, such as electronic commerce services. The main contribution of this paper is a discussion of the issues involved in the characterization, implementation and utilization of a benchmark for performance evaluation of e-commerce servers.