Instrumentation and Measurement

CSci 599 Class Presentation Shreyans Mehta

Abstract
Why Instrumentation and Measurement ? Instrumentation Techniques Resources Data Analysis Case Study: Paradyn
Guiding Principles System Overview W3 Search Model

Why Instrumentation and Measurement ?

Gathering data to improve the next execution of the program. Guiding scheduling decisions Adapting to computations while in execution

Instrumentation Techniques
Program Instrumentation Techniques
Manual : Programmer inserted directives Automatic : No direct user involvement
Binary Rewriting Dynamic Instrumentation

Processor Instrumentation Techniques

Information includes timers, memory system performance, processor usage, etc. Available mostly through special registers or memory mapped location.
Example : Pentium Pro provides performance data through MSRs. These registers include 64 bit cycle clock and counts of memory read /write, L1 cache misses, pipeline flushes, etc.

Hardware assisted trace generation.

 Operating System Instrumentation Techniques

Information includes behavior of virtual memory, file system, file cache etc. Instrumentation in the form of APIs for applications to access these variables.

Network Instrumentation Techniques

Ways of measuring
Passive
Example: RMON protocol defines SNMP MIB variables to report traffic statistics over hubs and switches.

Active
Example: Ping, NWS in grid style computing.

Data Storage Representation

Scalars
Counters Times

Traces Vector series

Resources
Software Abstractions
Program Components Code in Executions Synchronization Objects Other Software Abstractions

Hardware Abstractions Network Abstractions

Data Analysis
Quantitative Performance Automating Performance Diagnosis Perturbation Analysis

The Paradyn Parallel Performance Measurement Tools

Case Study

Guiding Principles and Characteristics

Scalability Automate the search for performance problems Provide well-defined data abstractions Support heterogeneous environments Support high level parallel languages Open interfaces for visualization and new data sources Streamlined use

System Overview
Basic Abstractions
Metric-focus grid Time Histograms

Components of the System

Main Paradyn Process
Performance Consultant Visualization Manager Data Manager User Interface Manager

Paradyn daemons External Visualization Processes.

Table Visualization
Tabular Summary CPU 3.0 4.0

Histogram Visualization

Paradyn
Visualization Manager
Visi Thread Visi Thread

Messages 117 81

User Interface Manager

Performance Consultant

Data Manager

Metric Manager Instrumentation Manager

Metric Manager

Paradyn Daemon(s)

Instrumentation Manager

Application

Processes

Application

Processes

Dynamic Instrumentation
Dynamic Instrumentation Interface
Metric Manager Instrumentation Manager

Points, Primitives and Predicates

addCounter(fooFlg, 1) addCounter(fooFlg, 1)
Foo() { . . }
SendMsg( dest, ptr, cnt, size) { . . }

if (fooFlg) startTimer(msgTme, ProcTime)

if (fooFlg) stopTimer(msgTme)

 Instrumentation generation
Base Trampolines Mini-Trampolines

Data Collection Internal Uses of Dynamic Instrumentation

Resource Discovery Collection of dynamic mapping information for HLL.

The W3 Search Model and the Performance Consultant

Why ? Where ? When ?
The Why Axis
Why is the application performing poorly ?
Potential performance problems are represented as hypotheses and tests. Hypotheses represent activities universal to all parallel computations. Hypotheses can be refined into more refined hypotheses using a search hierarchy. Tests are Boolean functions that evaluate the validity of a hypotheses. Tests are expressed in terms of a threshold and metrics calculated by the Instrumentation Manager.

A sample why axis with several hypotheses

TopLevelHypotheses

SyncBottleNeck

FrequentSyncOperations

HighSyncBlockingTime

HighSyncHoldingTime

HighSyncContention

 The Where Axis

Where is the performance problem ?
Pinpoints the problem specific to program components. Each hierarchy in where axis has multiple levels, with the leaf nodes being the instances of resources used by the application.
SyncObject

Semaphores

Message

SpinLock

Barier

 The When Axis

When does the problem occur ?
Represents periods of time during which performance problems can occur.

The Performance Consultant

This module discovers performance problems by searching the space defined by W3 Search Model. Fully automated search but also allows user to make manual refinements.

Open Visualization Interface

Paradyn provides a simple library and RPC interface to access performance data in realtime. Visualization modules (visis) in Paradyn are external processes that use this library and interface. Currently provides visis for timehistograms, bar charts and tables.

Examples of Use

Conclusion
Computational grids are focused on high performance distributed computing. To achieve high performance, such systems need to provide tools that enable the programmer to realize the potential performance inherent in such a system.

References
Jeffery K. Hollingsworth and Bart Miller, Instrumentation and Measurement, Chapter 14 of Grid: The Blueprint for a new computing infrastructure. Bart Miller, The Paradyn Parallel Performance Measurement Tools, http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~paradyn/papers/index.html