Execution-Driven Simulators for Parallel Systems Design

Evaluating, analyzing and predicting the performance of a parallel system is challenging due to the complex inter-play between the application characteristics and architectural features. The overheads in a parallel system that limit its scalability have to be identified and separated in order to enable performanceconscious parallel application design and the development of high-performance parallel machines. We have developed an evaluation framework that uses a combination of experimentation, simulation and analytical modeling to quantify these parallel system overheads. At the heart of this framework is an execution-driven simulation testbed called SPASM which uses a suite of real applications as the workload. We discuss our experiences in using this simulator in a wide range of architectural projects in this paper.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1997
• Where: WSC
• Authors: Anand Sivasubramaniam
• Keywords: Application Characteristics, Architectural Features, Modeling And Simulation, Performanceconscious Parallel Application, WSC 1997