RTEMS Intel i960 Applications Supplement
Benchmarks are commonly used to evaluate the performance of software and hardware. Benchmarks can be an effective tool when comparing systems. Unfortunately, benchmarks can also be manipulated to justify virtually any claim. Benchmarks of real-time executives are difficult to evaluate for a variety of reasons. Executives vary in the robustness of features and options provided. Even when executives compare favorably in functionality, it is quite likely that different methodologies were used to obtain the timing data. Another problem is that some executives provide times for only a small subset of directives, This is typically justified by claiming that these are the only time-critical directives. The performance of some executives is also very sensitive to the number of objects in the system. To obtain any measure of usefulness, the performance information provided for an executive should address each of these issues.
When evaluating the performance of a real-time executive, one typically considers the following areas: determinancy, directive times, worst case interrupt latency, and context switch time. Unfortunately, these areas do not have standard measurement methodologies. This allows vendors to manipulate the results such that their product is favorably represented. We have attempted to provide useful and meaningful timing information for RTEMS. To insure the usefulness of our data, the methodology and definitions used to obtain and describe the data are also documented.
RTEMS Intel i960 Applications Supplement
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