
              lmbench: Portable tools for performance analysis

                                 Larry McVoy
                           Silicon Graphics, Inc.

         lmbench is a micro-benchmark suite designed to focus attention
      on the basic building blocks of many common system  applications,
      such  as  databases,  simulations, software development, and
      networking.  In almost all  cases,  the  individual  tests  are
      the result  of  analysis and isolation of a customer's actual
      performance problem.  These tools can be, and currently  are,
      used  to compare  different system implementations from different
      vendors.  The tools have been and continue to be used by processor
      designers.  In  several  cases,  the  benchmarks  have  uncovered
      previously unknown  bugs  and design flaws.  lmbench  includes an
      extensible database of results from systems current as of late 1995.

      This talk will present an overview of the tests in lmbench as well
      as discuss the results for current processors.  The talk should
      be of interest to OS folks as well as Computer Archtecture folks.
      Time permitting, we'll have an open discussion of the results at
      the end.

      lmbench has been in use for several years, but was first formally
      presented at the January '96 Usenix where the paper, coauthored by
      Carl Staelin of HP Labs, won best of conference.

