CPW
Commercial Processing Workload. IBM's benchmark metric for measuring the relative processing performance of IBM i systems. Used to compare AS400/IBM i hardware generations and models.
CPW (Commercial Processing Workload) is IBM's standardized benchmark used to measure and compare the processing performance of IBM Power Systems hardware running IBM i workloads. CPW ratings are IBM's primary tool for comparing system performance across hardware generations. A system with a CPW rating of 2000 has twice the IBM i processing throughput of a system rated at 1000 CPW under the benchmark conditions. CPW ratings are assigned to each processor core type and chassis configuration. IBM publishes CPW ratings for current and historical hardware models. When comparing an upgrade from an older AS400 or Power9 system to a Power10 or Power11 system, the CPW ratio is one of the primary factors in right-sizing the replacement hardware. Note that CPW is an IBM-specific metric and does not directly translate to benchmarks used for x86 or other non-IBM platforms.