| 
	 What's new in SPEC SFS 2014 SP2?The introduction
	of the SPEC SFS 2014 SP2 benchmark is a minor revision update to the
	existing SPEC SFS 2014 SP1 benchmark. All published benchmark results
	remain valid. The original SPEC
	SFS 2014 SP1 workloads remain unchanged in the SP2 release: 
	DATABASE, SWBUILD, VDA, and VDI. These workloads continue to be in
	the SP2 release and results from SP1 and SP2 are directly comparable
	to each other. The SP2 release
	introduces one new workloads: EDA. The EDA workload is an entirely
	new workload only available in the SPEC SFS 2014 SP2 release. EDAThe EDA workload
	is representative of the Electronic Design Automation environments.
	The SPEC SFS 2014 SP2 EDA workload is based on network traces
	collected from real environments and input from domain experts in and
	published documentation of the real-world implementation of the EDA
	applications being simulated. It consists of two component workloads
	that provide two distinct types of behaviors. This workload also is
	the first workload in the SPEC SFS 2014 suite to have data sets that
	are both compressible and dedupable. The addition of support for
	dedupable data sets is a new feature within the SPEC SFS 2014 SP2
	benchmark release. One component
	workload is EDA_FRONTEND, which presents a load consisting of large
	numbers of small files with an emphasis on meta-data intensive
	operations. These small files represent small components that will be
	aggregated into larger assemblies. Each process generates 100 ops/sec
	of load to ~1,200 files that are each 16 KiB in size, and 1,200 are
	empty files. The empty files are used for appends, existence checks,
	permission checks, and various other operations that may involve data
	or metadata operations but start with empty files. The empty files
	also help spread accesses across more of the name space, and physical
	space associated with metadata. There are typically a large number of
	these small files that are transient or used for conveying state
	information to the EDA application.  For each increment in LOAD, the
	number of EDA_FRONTEND processes will increase by 3. The other
	component workload is EDA_BACKEND, which represents the load of large
	assemblies being created. These types of operations are reads and
	writes to large assembly type files. Each process generates 75
	ops/sec of load to ~580 files that are 10 MiB in size, and ~580 that
	are empty files.  For each increment in LOAD the number of
	EDA_BACKEND processes will increase by 2.
 The ratio of
	EDA_FRONTEND to EDA_BACKEND processes is maintained at 3 to 2 (3
	EDA_FRONTEND processes for every 2 EDA_BACKEND processes) as the LOAD
	increments.
 The EDA workload
	produces the new JOB_SETS metric, and will be publishable in the same
	way that the other workloads are published. For more
	information about the EDA workload, the technical session presented
	at SNIA’s Storage Developer Conference 2016 “Introducing
	the EDA Workload for the SPEC SFS® Benchmark” is available
	on YouTube: https://youtu.be/LaxXsrOeux4 SPEC
	SFS 2014 SP2 framework enhancements
	Improved
	scaling:  expanded maximum number of processes to 30,000 from
	10,000. (System-wide total number of processes within the benchmark
	framework)
	Improved
	startup time: reduced the wall-clock time to get tests started
	Enhanced
	client synchronization capabilities to ensure benchmark stays in
	sync regardless of network latency or requested load level
	Epoch-based
	time synchronization method added to enhance barrier synchronization
	Improved
	internal timer resolution from microseconds to nanoseconds
	Improved
	robustness: less susceptibility to transient network issues causing
	the test to fail
	Enhanced
	workload definitions
	
		Added
		support for component workloads to have different numbers of
		directories, files, and sizes of files (used by new EDA workload)
		Added
		support for dedupable data sets (used by new EDA workload)
		Added new
		operation types available to workloads
		Added
	support for INIT rate throttling (available for use with the new EDA
	workload)
	Added
	another digit in the precision reported for the latency reporting.
	Now reported as XX.YYY milliseconds.
	Added
	support for heterogeneous client types: can mix Windows and
	Unix-like load generators
	Improved
	logging to log more events and log existing events with more detail
	Added new
	lab testing features (results not publishable if used during runs)
			Op_rmdir()
			Removes a directory
			Op_Unlink2()
			Unlinks a file that has a non-zero file size
			Option
			to use encrypted data sets
			New
			hotspot options and data layouts
		Added new
		EDA workload definitions 
		NO_OP_VALIDATE:
		skip validating that all the op types work
		NO_SHARED_BUCKETS:
		only create files if they will be used by an active op type
	 New workload definition attributes in SP2:
	
		| Percent rmdir | Additional Op type available in SP2 |  
		| Percent unlink2 | Additional Op type available in SP2 (unlinks
			non-empty files (size > 0 bytes)) |  
		| Percent dedup | Set percentage of each file that is dedupable |  
		| Percent dedup_within | Percent of dedupe region in a file that
			is dedupable only within that single file |  
		| Percent dedup_across | Percent of dedupe region in a file that
			is dedupable only across files, not within the same file |  
		| Dedupe group count | How many unique groups of dedupable files
			to create – dedupe_across does not cross dedupe group
			boundaries |  
		| Percent per_spot | Determines how many hot spot regions will be
			created within each file. Example: 20% -> each file has 5 hot spot
			regions. |  
		| Min acc_per_spot | Minimum accesses within a hot spot region –
			access will stay within a single hot spot this many times before
			choosing another hot spot region. This sets the absolute low
			threshold for hotspot region accesses. |  
		| Acc mult_spot | How many 8 KiB chunks within a hot spot region
			must be accessed before choosing another hot spot region. This is the
			primary driver for setting affinity before choosing another hot spot
			region |  
		| Percent affinity | Percent chance when choosing a hot spot
			region to move to that a different hot spot region will be selected |  
		| Spot shape | The access pattern used when selecting an 8 KiB
			chunk to use within the current hot spot region: can be uniform
			random or geometric |  
		| Dedup granule size | Minimum size of region, in bytes, that
			comprises a dedupable chunk |  
		| Dedup gran rep limit | Maximum number of identical dedupable
			chunks that will be used before using a new dedupable chunk pattern |  
		| Comp granule size | Minimum size of region, in bytes, that
			comprises a compressible chunk |  
		| Cipher behavior | Enable or disable encryption of all dataset
			patterns. Note that this will effectively disable dedupe and
			compression savings. |  
		| Notification percent | Percent of write or metadata write ops
			that will generate a file or directory change notification. |  
		| LRU | Use internal LRU algorithm for file descriptor caching.
			This is an enhancement to file descriptor caching and is recommended
			for new custom workloads. |  
		| Pattern version | Use SP1 or SP2 data pattern layout for
			compression and dedup. The pattern layout for SP2 is recommended for
			new custom workloads. |  
		| Init rate throttle | Set dataset creation rate throttle such
			that no proc will exceed this rate in MiB/s during the INIT phase |  
		| Init read flag | Enable or disable re-reading of existing files
			on all LOAD points after the first during the INIT phase. For SP1
			workloads, this behavior enabled. Disabling this is recommended for
			new custom workloads. |  
		| Rand dist behavior | Selection algorithm for regions within
			files – either in 8 KiB chunks or in hot spot regions. For 8
			KiB chunks, the behavior can be set to uniform random or geometric.
			Most SP1 workloads use uniform random for 8 KiB chunks, while
			DATABASE uses geometric for 8 KiB chunks. With SP2, a new mode allows
			a geometric access pattern across hot spot regions, so some hot spots
			will be hotter than others. This must be set to geometric access
			across hot spot regions to enable hot spot functionality. |  Q & A Q: Is this a major or minor update?   A: This is a minor update. All published results remain
	comparable and all workloads are still available.
  Q: Is this going to cost me money?  A: No. Minor updates are free for existing license holders.
  Q: Have any of the configuration files changed?  A: Yes, the sfs_rc, benchmarks.xml, and the format of the
	custom workload definitions have all been enhanced to support the new
	functionality as well as the new workloads. If you have any of these
	from the previous version you can easily move the data from the old
	version to the new version. These are all simple text files and the
	older formatted labels and values can be moved to the new format
	where the labels continue to be the same.
  Q: Can I publish any of the workloads from SPEC SFS 2014 SP1
	using SPEC SFS 2014 SP2?  A: Yes. DATABASE, SWBUILD, VDA, and VDI remain unchanged from
	SP1 to SP2. |