In computing, a benchmark is the result of running a computer program, or a set of programs, in order to assess the relative performance of an object, by running a number of standard tests and trials against it. The term is also commonly used for specially-designed benchmarking programs themselves. Benchmarking is usually associated with assessing performance characteristics of computer hardware, e.g., the floating point operation performance of a CPU, but there are circumstances when the technique is also applicable to software. Software benchmarks are, for example, run against compilers or database management systems.