The Michigan Benchmark: Towards XML Query Performance Diagnostics

This paper proposes a micro-benchmark for XML data management to aid engineers in designing improved XML processing engines. This benchmark is inherently different from application-level benchmarks, which are designed to help users choose between alternative products. The authors primarily attempt to capture the rich variety of data structures and distributions possible in XML, and to isolate their effects, without imitating any particular application. The benchmark specifies a single data set against which carefully specified queries can be used to evaluate system performance for XML data with various characteristics. The benchmark is used to analyze the performance of three database systems: two native XML DBMS, and a commercial ORDBMS.