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Overview of Analysis Techniques

 

Waiting time analysis and communication analysis are both automated techniques that examine execution traces of DSM programs and produce explanations for parallel overheads in terms of the source code. Waiting time analysis examines traces to discover the set of basic blocks whose execution delayed one processor, causing another to wait at a synchronization point. Communication analysis examines the same traces to discover the access pattern that caused a page to be invalidated, and subsequently requested by another processor. Both techniques present the sources of parallel overheads in order of their relative contribution to the running time of the application, and highlight the portions of source code that must be modified to reduce the overheads, and hence improve running time.





Wagner Meira
Mon Dec 16 23:02:14 EST 1996