  The storage industry is considering new kinds of storage devices that support
data access function offloading, i.e. the ability to perform data access
functions on the storage device itself as opposed to performing it on a
separate compute system to which the storage device is connected. But what is
the benefit of offloading to a storage device that is controlled by an embedded
platform, very different from a host platform? To quantify the benefit, we need
a measurement methodology that enables apple-to-apple comparisons between
different platforms. We propose a Media-based Work Unit (MBWU, pronounced
"MibeeWu"), and an MBWU-based measurement methodology to standardize the
platform efficiency evaluation so as to quantify the benefit of offloading. To
demonstrate the merit of this methodology, we implemented a prototype to
automate quantifying the benefit of offloading the key-value data access
function.

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing;Databases;Performance