Encryption Benchmark

The Encryption benchmark evaluates the throughput of modern authenticated encryption algorithms using realistic production workloads.

Encryption has become a fundamental component of virtually every modern software system. Secure communication protocols, distributed storage systems, cloud infrastructure, authentication services, VPN technologies, databases, and backup platforms all rely on authenticated encryption to guarantee confidentiality and integrity of data.

Unlike traditional encryption benchmarks that measure only raw cipher throughput, the Scalionix Encryption benchmark evaluates complete authenticated encryption pipelines, including key initialization, nonce generation, authenticated encryption, authenticated decryption, integrity verification, and complete round-trip processing.

This approach provides measurements that more accurately reflect practical software engineering workloads.

Objectives

The Encryption benchmark has four primary objectives.

• Measure authenticated encryption throughput.
• Measure authenticated decryption throughput.
• Measure complete encryption pipelines.
• Evaluate scalability across multiple processor cores.

Unlike synthetic benchmarks, the objective is not to maximize cipher speed, but to measure practical performance during realistic software execution.

Why Encryption?

Modern software encrypts data continuously.

Examples include:

• HTTPS traffic
• TLS connections
• REST APIs
• gRPC communication
• VPN tunnels
• Secure backups
• Database encryption
• Object storage
• Cloud synchronization
• Software update distribution
• Secret management
• Authentication systems

Because authenticated encryption is now ubiquitous, encryption throughput has become a meaningful indicator of practical CPU performance.

Benchmark Philosophy

Every benchmark scenario performs complete authenticated encryption rather than isolated block cipher operations.

Each workload includes all operations required by production software.

Typical execution consists of:

       Generate deterministic input
                    │
                    ▼
            Initialize cipher
                    │
                    ▼
             Generate nonce
                    │
                    ▼
                 Encrypt
                    │
                    ▼
       Generate authentication tag
                    │
                    ▼
            Optionally decrypt
                    │
                    ▼
            Verify original data
                    │
                    ▼
            Measure throughput

The benchmark therefore evaluates practical cryptographic workloads rather than theoretical algorithm performance.

Supported Algorithms

The current benchmark evaluates three modern authenticated encryption algorithms.

AES-128-GCM

AES-128-GCM represents one of the most widely deployed authenticated encryption algorithms in modern infrastructure.

It is commonly used by:

• TLS
• HTTPS
• VPNs
• Enterprise software
• Cloud infrastructure

Scenarios

encryption.aes128_gcm.encrypt
encryption.aes128_gcm.decrypt
encryption.aes128_gcm.round_trip

AES-256-GCM

AES-256-GCM provides increased cryptographic security while remaining one of the most common authenticated encryption algorithms in enterprise environments.

Scenarios

encryption.aes256_gcm.encrypt
encryption.aes256_gcm.decrypt
encryption.aes256_gcm.round_trip

ChaCha20-Poly1305

ChaCha20-Poly1305 is a modern authenticated stream cipher optimized for software implementations.

Unlike AES, ChaCha20 does not require dedicated processor instructions to achieve excellent performance.

It is widely deployed in:

• TLS
• WireGuard
• SSH
• Mobile devices
• Cloud-native software

Scenarios

encryption.chacha20_poly1305.encrypt
encryption.chacha20_poly1305.decrypt
encryption.chacha20_poly1305.round_trip

Encryption, Decryption and Round Trip

Each algorithm is evaluated using three independent execution scenarios.

Encryption

Measures authenticated encryption throughput.

Pipeline

            Generate plaintext
                    │
                    ▼
                 Encrypt
                    │
                    ▼
            Authentication tag
                    │
                    ▼
                 Measure

Decryption

Measures authenticated decryption throughput.

Pipeline

              Encrypted data
                    │
                    ▼
        Verify authentication tag
                    │
                    ▼
                 Decrypt
                    │
                    ▼
                 Measure

Round Trip

Measures complete secure processing.

Pipeline

            Generate plaintext
                    │
                    ▼
                 Encrypt
                    │
                    ▼
                 Decrypt
                    │
                    ▼
            Verify equality
                    │
                    ▼
                 Measure

The Round Trip scenario most closely represents complete application behavior.

Dataset Sizes

Encryption workloads execute multiple deterministic dataset sizes.

Smaller datasets emphasize initialization overhead.

Larger datasets emphasize sustained throughput.

Dataset sizes remain identical across all supported platforms.

Worker Configuration

Encryption benchmarks evaluate scalability using multiple worker configurations.

Each worker encrypts an independent dataset.

Workers never share encryption state.

This execution model reflects production services where multiple independent encryption operations execute concurrently.

Representative worker configurations include:

[ 1 / 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 12 / 16 / 20 / 24 / 32 ]

Verification

Every encryption workload performs strict correctness verification.

Verification includes:

• Successful encryption
• Successful authentication
• Successful decryption
• Equality verification

Benchmark execution is considered valid only when decrypted data exactly matches the original plaintext.

Authentication failures immediately invalidate benchmark results.

Measured Metrics

Primary metrics include:

• Processed bytes
• Execution duration
• Throughput
• Worker configuration
• Iteration timing

The scoring adapter converts throughput into normalized bytes processed per second.

Score Calculation

Encryption workloads participate fully in the Compute Score.

Each workload contributes:

Single-thread Score

Measures processor efficiency using a single execution worker.

Multi-thread Score

Measures maximum sustained throughput.

Scaling Score

Measures parallel scalability.

Scenario scores are aggregated into the Encryption category score.

Hardware Characteristics Measured

Encryption performance reflects multiple processor characteristics.

Processor Architecture

Modern CPUs provide dedicated cryptographic instructions.

Memory Bandwidth

Large streaming datasets stress the memory subsystem.

SIMD Capabilities

Vector instructions significantly improve throughput.

Instruction Scheduling

Efficient instruction scheduling improves sustained cryptographic performance.

Parallel Execution

Independent encryption streams scale efficiently across processor cores.

Because authenticated encryption combines arithmetic, memory access, and cryptographic primitives, the resulting benchmark score reflects overall computational efficiency rather than raw processor frequency.

Practical Interpretation

High Encryption scores generally indicate:

• Strong processor architecture
• Efficient cryptographic instruction support
• High sustained throughput
• Efficient runtime implementation
• Excellent multi-core scalability

Systems with strong encryption performance typically perform well in backend services, secure communication platforms, storage infrastructure, and cloud-native applications.

Design Summary

The Encryption benchmark evaluates complete authenticated encryption pipelines using production-grade algorithms and deterministic workloads.

Rather than measuring isolated cryptographic primitives, the benchmark measures realistic encryption workflows representative of modern software systems.

The resulting category score therefore reflects practical cryptographic performance encountered in everyday engineering environments.