Fstress: A Flexible Network File Service Benchmark

Benchmarks provide repeatable workloads for testing and comparison. An ideal file service benchmark would be easy to use, be highly configurable to emulate arbitrary workloads, and scale to extreme load levels and data set sizes. This paper introduces Fstress, a synthetic, flexible, self-scaling file service benchmark. We identify and support twelve workload-description parameters, enabling a wide range of workloads to evaluate file service scalability, sizing, configuration, and other factors. We demonstrate the generality of our approach by using these parameters to express seven popular existing workloads that exercise different aspects of a file service. As workload patterns continue to evolve, it is straightforward to capture and emulate their essential characteristics.