Calvin: Deterministic or not? Free will to choose

Most shared memory systems maximize performance by unpredictably resolving memory races. Unpredictable memory races can lead to nondeterminism in parallel programs, which can suffer from hard-toreproduce hiesenbugs. We introduce Calvin, a shared memory model capable of executing in a conventional nondeterministic mode when performance is paramount and a deterministic mode when execution repeatability is important. Unlike prior hardware proposals for deterministic execution, Calvin exploits the flexibility of a memory consistency model weaker than sequential consistency. Specifically, Calvin logically orders memory operations into strata that are compatible with the Total Store Order (TSO). Calvin is also designed with the needs of future power-aware processors in mind, and does not require any speculation support. We develop a Calvin-MIST implementation that uses an unordered coalescing write cache, multiplewrite coherence protocol, and delayed (timebomb) invalidations while maintaini...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: HPCA
• Authors: Derek Hower, Polina Dudnik, Mark D. Hill, David A. Wood
• Keywords: Conventional Nondeterministic Mode, Distributed And Parallel Computing, HPCA 2011, Memory Races, Unpredictable Memory Races