DataMill
Augusto Born de Oliveira, Jean-Christophe Petkovich, Thomas Reidemeister, Sebastian Fischmeister · 2013
Empirical systems research is facing a dilemma. Minor aspects of an experimental setup can have a significant impact on its associated performance measurements and potentially invalidate conclusions drawn from them. Examples of such influences, often called hidden factors, include binary link order, process environment size, compiler generated randomized symbol names, or group scheduler assignments. The growth in complexity and size of modern systems will further aggravate this dilemma, especially with the given time pressure of producing results. So how can one trust any reported empirical analysis of a new idea or concept in computer science?