Trust, But Verify:

The GPC Verification Process

The GPC Group has established a verification process for all results published in the GPC News. The process, used by all GPC project groups, is designed to sanction all results published in the on-line and quarterly hardcopy publications.

The following steps constitute the reviewing procedures:

• On the day indicated by the approved GPC News publication schedule, results are placed in an "incoming" directory of the GPC's private Web site.
• The following day, the GPC administrator assigns reviewers among those vendors that have submitted new results. No vendor representative is allowed to review his or her own numbers. In addition to the reviewing assignments, all members have access to new results and can review them if they wish.
• A scheduled period of time -- usually one week -- is allowed for review. Each reviewer is responsible for reviewing the submission and deciding whether to accept it, accept it with comment, or not accept it with comment. Comments on submissions are not limited to review teams; anyone within a project group may review materials and direct comments or questions to the vendor submitting the results. Any project group member can request that the submitting vendor recreate the results in his or her presence.
• Once reviews have been completed, there is a period of appeal for any vendor whose submission has not been accepted. The entire project group is permitted to comment during this period. The appeal period culminates in a call for a vote on whether to accept or reject the appeal. If the appeal is turned down, the vendor representative has a choice of changing his or her submission to satisfy requirements, or to withdraw the results.

Members of any project group may run their own performance tests and publicize results at any time. The numbers are not officially sanctioned, however, until they go through the official verification process prior to publication in the GPC News.

The verification process established by the GPC Group is based on the premise of "trust, but verify." Under this system, vendor representatives are trusted to produce legitimate results; these results, however, undergo a verification process that leaves little doubt as to the authenticity of numbers published in the GPC News.