> Is there such a thing as a suite of standardized performance tests for large-scale, multi-core databases?

There is: the TPC family[1] and their opensource dopplegangers, the OSDL-DBT family[1].

I don't think they've been applied to non-relational databases as yet.

[1] http://www.tpc.org/information/benchmarks.asp [2] http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/osdldbt/index.php?titl...