This article serves as a thoughtful guide to the nuances of database benchmarking, emphasizing the importance of methodological rigor to avoid bias. The strongest aspect of the narrative is its focus on fairness—whether in resource allocation, workload design, or result reporting. It rightly highlights how seemingly minor details, like network latency or cache warmup, can dramatically skew outcomes. The distinction between closed-loop and open-loop benchmarks is particularly valuable, as it clar...