Edinburgh Napier University

  Many organisations are considering the use of large relational databases to implement their information needs. For large organisations this will result in the implementation of a machine dedicated to that task. In the near future, these database machines will use high performance parallel engines to provide the required computing resource. Performance evaluation is particularly important when the design is being considered for future scalability and the ability of the design to cope with unexpected data access. The paper reports on the development of a synthetic or “mimic” database which models a real application: this mimic not only forms the basis for a new benchmark for large SQL databases, but can also be used to support the design process.