Making the "Box" Transparent: System Call Performance as a First-Class Result

For operating system intensive applications, the ability of designers to understand system call performance behavior is essential to achieving high performance. Conventional performance tools, such as monitoring tools and profilers, collect and present their information off-line or via out-ofband channels. We believe that making this information first-class and exposing it to applications via in-band channels on a per-call basis presents opportunities for performance analysis and tuning not available via other mechanisms. Furthermore, our approach provides direct feedback to applications on time spent in the kernel, resource contention, and time spent blocked, allowing them to immediately observe how their actions affect kernel behavior. Not only does this approach provide greater transparency into the workings of the kernel, but it also allows applications to control how performance information is collected, filtered, and correlated with application-level events. To demonstrate the p...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: USENIX
• Authors: Yaoping Ruan, Vivek S. Pai
• Keywords: Conventional Performance Tools, Operating System, Performance, Performance Behavior, USENIX 2004