Why are the RBE and PGE not included in the price, since it is required to run the benchmark?
The RBE is required to drive the benchmark, but is not really part of the system under test (SUT). The RBE emulates browsers, which are not normally components of the host system. See Section 8.2. The measured components (SUT) of TPC-W are emulating a retail merchant on the Web. The Payment Gateway (PGE) is a component representing the credit card company and is not part of the retail merchant system. The PGE processes credit card payment authorization requests sent by the merchant and informs the merchant whether the cardholder is authorized to use his credit card for this purchase. Since the PGE is not part of the merchant system, it is not appropriate to include its price in the SUT cost.
