Collecting whole-system reference traces of multiprogrammed and multithreaded workloads

The simulated evaluation of memory management policies relies on reference traces—logs of memory operations performed by running processes. No existing approach to reference trace collection is applicable to a complete system, including the kernel and all processes. Specifically, none gather sufficient information for simulating the virtual memory management, the filesystem cache management, and the scheduling of a multiprogrammed, multithreaded workload. Existing trace collectors are also difficult to maintain and to port, making them partially or wholly unusable on many modern systems. We present Laplace, a trace collector that can log every memory reference that a system performs. Laplace is implemented through modifications to a simulated processor and an operating system kernel. Because it collects references at the simulated CPU layer, Laplace produces traces that are complete and minimally distorted. Its modified kernel also logs selected events that a post-processor uses...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: WOSP
• Authors: Scott F. Kaplan
• Keywords: Laplace, Memory Management, Software Engineering, Virtual Memory, WOSP 2004