Month: March 2021

Considering WebAssembly for WebXPRT 4

on March 25, 2021

Earlier this month, we discussed a few of our ideas for possible changes in WebXPRT 4, including new web technologies that may work well in a browser benchmark. Today, we’re going to focus on one of those technologies, WebAssembly, in more detail.

WebAssembly (WASM) is a binary instruction format that works across all modern browsers. WASM provides a sandboxed environment that operates at native speeds and takes advantage of common hardware specs across platforms. WASM’s capabilities offer web developers a great deal of flexibility for running complex client applications in the browser. That level of flexibility may enable workload scenario options for WebXPRT 4 such as gaming, video editing, VR, virtual machines, and image recognition. We’re excited about those possibilities, but it remains to be seen which WASM use cases will meet the criteria we look for when considering new WebXPRT workloads, such as relevancy to real life, consistency and replicability, and the broadest-possible level of cross-browser support.

One WASM workload that we’re investigating is a web-based machine learning workload with TensorFlow for JavaScript (TensorFlow.js). TensorFlow.js offers pre-trained models for a wide variety of tasks, including image classification, object detection, sentence encoding, and natural language processing. TensorFlow.js originally used WebGL technology on the back end, but now it’s possible to run the workload using WASM. We could also use this technology to enhance one of WebXPRT’s existing AI-themed workloads, such as Organize Album using AI or Encrypt Notes and OCR Scan.

We’re can’t yet say that a WASM workload will definitely appear in WebXPRT 4, but the technology is promising. Do you have any experience with WASM, or ideas for WASM workloads? There’s still time for you to help shape the future of WebXPRT 4, so let us know what you think!

Justin

Posted in benchmark, BenchmarkXPRT, Browser-based benchmarks, Collaborative benchmark development, Cross-platform benchmarks, image processing, Machine learning, Performance benchmarking, TensorFlow, Virtual reality, Web-based testing, WebAssembly, WebGL, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 3 | Tagged benchmark, BenchmarkXPRT, browser, cross-platform, TensorFlow, WASM, WebAssembly, WebGL, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 3 |

CrXPRT support through 2022

By Justin Greene

on March 18, 2021

CrXPRT testers may remember that back around the time that we began the CrXPRT 2 development process, the Chrome team announced that they were phasing out support for Portable Native Client (PNaCL) in favor of WebAssembly (WASM). As a first step, they changed the Chrome OS setting that enabled PNaCL by default. At the time, this caused problems with the Photo Collage workload in CrXPRT 2015, and even though we identified a workaround, details in the Chrome team’s announcement led us to conclude that the workaround might stop working in June 2021. Because of this change, we decided that the best decision would be to remove the workload from CrXPRT 2, and keep existing CrXPRT 2015 testers informed of any changes with the workaround.

In 2020, the Chrome team also announced that they would be phasing out support for Chrome Apps altogether starting in June 2021, and would shift their focus to Chrome extensions. This change would have required us to reassess the viability of CrXPRT in anything like its current form.

We’re happy to report that the Chrome team has extended support for PNaCL and existing Chrome Apps through June 2022. Barring further changes, this means that CrXPRT 2015 (with the workaround) and CrXPRT 2 should continue to serve as reliable Chrome OS evaluation tools for some time.

If you have any questions about CrXPRT 2, please let us know!

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, Browser-based benchmarks, Chrome OS, Chromium, CrXPRT, Google Chrome, Performance benchmarking, PNaCL, WebAssembly | Tagged Chrome, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, Chromium, CrXPRT, CrXPRT 2, PNaCl, WebAssembly |

The CloudXPRT v1.1 general release is tomorrow!

By Justin Greene

on March 11, 2021

We’re happy to announce that CloudXPRT v1.1 will move from beta to general release status tomorrow! The installation packages will be available at the CloudXPRT.com download page and the BenchmarkXPRT GitHub repository. You will find more details about the v1.1 updates in a previous blog post, but the most prominent changes are the consolidation of the five previous installation packages into two packages (one per workload) and added support for Ubuntu 20.04.2 with on-premises testing.

Before you get started with v1.1, please note the following updated system requirements:

Ubuntu 20.04.2 or later for on-premises testing
Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04.2 or later for CSP (AWS/Azure/GCP) testing

CloudXPRT is designed to run on high-end servers. Physical nodes or VMs under test must meet the following minimum specifications:

16 logical or virtual CPUs
8 GB of RAM
10 GB of available disk space (50 GB for the data analytics workload)

We have also made significant adjustments to the installation and test configuration instructions in the readmes for both workloads, so please revisit these documents even if you’re familiar with previous test processes.

As we noted during the beta period, we have not observed any significant differences in performance between v1.01 and v1.1, but we haven’t tested every possible test configuration across every platform. If you observe different results when testing the same configuration with v1.01 and v1.1, please send us the details so we can investigate.

If you have any questions about CloudXPRT v1.1, please let us know!

Justin

Posted in Amazon Web Services, benchmark, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, Cloud, CloudXPRT, Clusters, Cross-platform benchmarks, CSP, data analytics, Datacenter, Google Cloud Platform, Hosted cloud, Hybrid cloud, IaaS, Microsoft Azure, on premises, Performance benchmarking, Server, Ubuntu, web microservices | Tagged Amazon Web Services, cloud, cloud applications, CloudXPRT, datacenter, Google Cloud Platform, hosted cloud, hybrid cloud, Microsoft Azure |

Moving forward with WebXPRT 4

By Justin Greene

on March 4, 2021

In the coming months, we’ll be moving forward with the first stages of the WebXPRT 4 development process. It’s been a while since we last asked readers to send their thoughts about web technologies and workloads that may be a good fit for WebXPRT 4, but we’re still very much open to ideas. If you missed our previous posts about possible changes for WebXPRT 4, we recap the most prominent ideas below. We also request specific feedback regarding a potential battery life component.

Community members have asked about a WebXPRT 4 battery life test. Any such test would likely be very similar to the performance-weighted battery life test in CrXPRT 2 (as opposed to a simple rundown test). While WebXPRT runs in almost any browser, cross-browser compatibility issues could cause a WebXPRT battery life test to run in only one browser. If this turned out to be the case, would you still be interested in using the battery life test? Please let us know.
One of the most promising ideas is the potential addition of one or more WebAssembly (WASM) workloads. WASM is a low-level, binary instruction format that works across all modern browsers. It offers web developers a great deal of flexibility and provides the speed and efficiency necessary for running complex client applications in the browser. WASM enables a variety of workload scenario options, including gaming, video editing, VR, virtual machines, image recognition, and interactive educational content.
We are also considering adding a web-based machine learning workload with TensorFlow for JavaScript (TensorFlow.js). TensorFlow.js offers pre-trained models for a wide range of tasks including image classification, object detection, sentence encoding, and natural language processing. We could also use this technology to enhance one of WebXPRT’s existing AI-themed workloads, such as Organize Album using AI or Encrypt Notes and OCR Scan.
Other ideas include using a WebGL-based workload to target GPUs, and simulating common web applications.

We’ll start work on WebXPRT 4 soon, but there’s still time to send your comments and ideas, so please do so as quickly as possible!

Justin

Posted in battery life, benchmark, BenchmarkXPRT, Browser-based benchmarks, Collaborative benchmark development, Future of performance evaluation, Performance benchmarking, TensorFlow, WebAssembly, WebGL, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 3 | Tagged battery life, browser, cross-platform, JavaScript, TensorFlow, WebAssembly, WebGL, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 3, WebXPRT 4 |

Month: March 2021

Considering WebAssembly for WebXPRT 4

CrXPRT support through 2022

The CloudXPRT v1.1 general release is tomorrow!

Moving forward with WebXPRT 4

Check out the other XPRTs: