commercial processing workload (IBM benchmark) (CPW)

IBM has developed the Commercial Processing Workload (CPW) evaluation unit for evaluating the performance of iSeries computers. It can be used to compare the performance of iSeries computers with each other.

The CPW value shows how efficiently the individual computer systems process a typical commercial application with regular access to a database. It is a benchmark for commercial applications, which corresponds to the main application area of the iSeries computers. The basis for a CPW unit is an AS/400 B10 computer with 16 megabytes( MB) of memory and an 800 MB hard disk. The CPU utilization for a transaction is 70%.

Computers with higher CPW value are more powerful. Since the CPW value is linear, a computer with a CPW value of 5 can calculate the transaction in one fifth of the time or 5 users can perform a transaction simultaneously.