Next Generation of HEP CPU benchmarks

Abstract

Abstract HEPSPEC-06(HS06) is a decade old suite used to benchmark CPU resources for WLCG. Its adoption spans from hardware vendors, to site managers, funding agencies and software experts. Although it is stable, reproducible and accurate, it is reaching the end of its life. Initial hints of lack of correlations with HEP applications have been collected. Looking for suitable alternatives the HEPiX Benchmarking Working Group has evaluated SPEC CPU 2017 with a number of fast benchmarks. The studies that have been done so far do not show any major advantage in adopting SPEC CPU 2017 with respect to HS06. A suite based on workloads that HEP experiments run can be an alternative to industrial standard benchmarks. The adoption by LHC experiments of modern software development techniques simplifies the ability to package, distribute and maintain a field-specific benchmark suite. The HEPiX Benchmarking Working Group is actively working to make this possible. This report summarises the progress of the HEPiX Benchmarking Working Group in building a benchmarking suite based on HEP workloads. Comparisons of results with SPEC CPU 2017 and HS06 will be discussed.