In IT procurement and evaluation, benchmarking is primarily used to compare candidate computer systems objectively based on representative workloads and metrics.

Introduction / Context:
Benchmarking runs standardized or representative workloads to measure performance characteristics (throughput, latency, I/O rates, CPU efficiency). Organizations use the results to compare hardware, operating systems, databases, or cloud services when making purchase or migration decisions. The key is repeatability and relevance to the intended use case.

Given Data / Assumptions:

• Candidate platforms will be evaluated before acquisition or deployment.
• Workloads approximate real production patterns.
• Results inform a selection decision constrained by budget and SLAs.

Concept / Approach:
Effective benchmarking selects metrics aligned to business outcomes (e.g., transactions per second for OLTP, time-to-train for ML, cost per job for batch). Scores are gathered under controlled, documented conditions. While benchmarking can inform acceptance, acceptance testing usually validates a specific contracted system against requirements rather than comparing multiple candidates: the primary use is selection.

Step-by-Step Solution:
Define representative workloads and success metrics.Execute benchmarks on candidate systems under consistent configurations.Analyze results (including cost/performance) to select the optimal system.

Verification / Alternative check:
Procurement processes commonly include proof-of-concepts and benchmarks before awarding contracts; acceptance occurs later on the chosen system.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Maintaining files: an operational activity unrelated to performance comparison.Application prototyping: explores requirements/UX rather than platform performance selection.System acceptance: may use tests, but benchmarking’s primary role is pre-selection comparison.None of the above: incorrect because selection via benchmarking is standard.

Common Pitfalls:
Choosing synthetic tests that do not reflect real workloads; ignoring total cost (licensing, support); and failing to control environmental variables (cache warm-up, network noise) which skews results.

Final Answer:
To select computer systems