How the MinuteSort Test is Administered

The Sort Benchmark Page run by ACM Turing Award winner Jim Gray sets the ground rules for the sort tests. The “Ground rules” section of the Web site states:

· Must sort to and from operating system files on secondary storage.

· No raw disk benchmarks allowed since we are trying to test the IO subsystem.

· File or device striping (RAID 0) are allowed (encouraged) to get bandwidth.

· The output file must be created as part of the sort.

· Time includes the launching of the sort program.

The Benchmark Page FAQ includes additional details and guidelines along with source code for the data-generating and checking programs to be used.

Once a year, an award is given. The Benchmark Page describes this process:

· Trophies are awarded each year at ACM SIGMOD.

· Entrants can contact any previous winner and get their result "certified" by April 1.

· Entries must include a document describing the algorithm and the hardware in enough detail so that others could reproduce the result.

The 40-GB NeoSort record was audited by Chris Nyberg, representing Ordinal Technology, the last winner of the Daytona Minute Sort benchmark award (2004). Jim Gray confirmed that 40 GB is the fastest sort for the Minute Sort benchmark to date in the commercial category.