Dockerization Impacts in Database Performance Benchmarking

Docker seems to be an attractive solution for cloud database benchmarking as it simplifies the setup process through pre-built images that are portable and simple to maintain. However, the usage of Docker for benchmarking is only valid if there is no effect on measurement results. Existing work has so far only focused on the performance overheads that Docker directly induces for specific applications. In this paper, we have studied indirect effects of dockerization on the results of database benchmarking. Among others, our results clearly show that containerization has a measurable and non-constant influence on measurement results and should, hence, only be used after careful analysis.