How do I run the benchmark myself?

If you plan to run the benchmark and compare results, you need to run in benchmark mode. We recommend having a minimum of three distinct computers with a fast network connection in between, all of which you should be comfortable installing a large amount of additional software on. One of these computers (the app server) must have passwordless SSH access to the other two (search Google for help, yielding references such as these: article 1 article 2 article 3), and on every computer you will need to have passwordless sudo access (Google for help). Once you have cloned our repository, run toolset/run-tests.py --help for detailed help on running in benchmark mode.

If you wish to benchmark on Amazon EC2, see our scripts for launching a benchmark-ready Amazon environment.

If you are not an expert, please ensure your setup can run in verify mode before attempting to run in benchmark mode.