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Delorean: Virtualized Directed Profiling for Cache Modeling in Sampled Simulation
Arm Research, Cambridge UK.
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Mathematics and Computer Science, Department of Information Technology, Computer Architecture and Computer Communication. Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Mathematics and Computer Science, Department of Information Technology, Computer Systems.
Department of Computer Science, National University of Singapore.
2018 (English)Report (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Current practice for accurate and efficient simulation (e.g., SMARTS and Simpoint) makes use of sampling to significantly reduce the time needed to evaluate new research ideas. By evaluating a small but representative portion of the original application, sampling can allow for both fast and accurate performance analysis. However, as cache sizes of modern architectures grow, simulation time is dominated by warming microarchitectural state and not by detailed simulation, reducing overall simulation efficiency. While checkpoints can significantly reduce cache warming, improving efficiency, they limit the flexibility of the system under evaluation, requiring new checkpoints for software updates (such as changes to the compiler and compiler flags) and many types of hardware modifications. An ideal solution would allow for accurate cache modeling for each simulation run without the need to generate rigid checkpointing data a priori.

Enabling this new direction for fast and flexible simulation requires a combination of (1) a methodology that allows for hardware and software flexibility and (2) the ability to quickly and accurately model arbitrarily-sized caches. Current approaches that rely on checkpointing or statistical cache modeling require rigid, up-front state to be collected which needs to be amortized over a large number of simulation runs. These earlier methodologies are insufficient for our goals for improved flexibility. In contrast, our proposed methodology, Delorean, outlines a unique solution to this problem. The Delorean simulation methodology enables both flexibility and accuracy by quickly generating a targeted cache model for the next detailed region on the fly without the need for up-front simulation or modeling. More specifically, we propose a new, more accurate statistical cache modeling method that takes advantage of hardware virtualization to precisely determine the memory regions accessed and to minimize the time needed for data collection while maintaining accuracy.

Delorean uses a multi-pass approach to understand the memory regions accessed by the next, upcoming detailed region. Our methodology collects the entire set of key memory accesses and, through fast virtualization techniques, progressively scans larger, earlier regions to learn more about these key accesses in an efficient way. Using these techniques, we demonstrate that Delorean allows for the fast evaluation of systems and their software though the generation of accurate cache models on the fly. Delorean outperforms previous proposals by an order of magnitude, with a simulation speed of 150 MIPS and a similar average CPI error (below 4%).

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2018. , p. 12
Series
Technical report / Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University, ISSN 1404-3203 ; 2018-014
National Category
Computer Systems
Research subject
Computer Science
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-369320OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-369320DiVA, id: diva2:1270026
Available from: 2018-12-12 Created: 2018-12-12 Last updated: 2024-05-29Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Efficient Memory Modeling During Simulation and Native Execution
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Efficient Memory Modeling During Simulation and Native Execution
2019 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Application performance on computer processors depends on a number of complex architectural and microarchitectural design decisions. Consequently, computer architects rely on performance modeling to improve future processors without building prototypes. This thesis focuses on performance modeling and proposes methods that quantify the impact of the memory system on application performance.

Detailed architectural simulation, a common approach to performance modeling, can be five orders of magnitude slower than execution on the actual processor. At this rate, simulating realistic workloads requires years of CPU time. Prior research uses sampling to speed up simulation. Using sampled simulation, only a number of small but representative portions of the workload are evaluated in detail. To fully exploit the speed potential of sampled simulation, the simulation method has to efficiently reconstruct the architectural and microarchitectural state prior to the simulation samples. Practical approaches to sampled simulation use either functional simulation at the expense of performance or checkpoints at the expense of flexibility. This thesis proposes three approaches that use statistical cache modeling to efficiently address the problem of cache warm up and speed up sampled simulation, without compromising flexibility. The statistical cache model uses sparse memory reuse information obtained with native techniques to model the performance of the cache. The proposed sampled simulation framework evaluates workloads 150 times faster than approaches that use functional simulation to warm up the cache.

Other approaches to performance modeling use analytical models based on data obtained from execution on native hardware. These native techniques allow for better understanding of the performance bottlenecks on existing hardware. Efficient resource utilization in modern multicore processors is necessary to exploit their peak performance. This thesis proposes native methods that characterize shared resource utilization in modern multicores. These methods quantify the impact of cache sharing and off-chip memory sharing on overall application performance. Additionally, they can quantify scalability bottlenecks for data-parallel, symmetric workloads.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2019. p. 73
Series
Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology, ISSN 1651-6214 ; 1756
Keywords
performance analysis, cache performance, multicore performance, memory system, memory bandwidth, memory contention, performance prediction, multi-threading, multiprocessing systems, program diagnostics, commodity multicores, multithreaded program resource requirements, performance counters, scalability bottleneck, scalability improvement
National Category
Computer Systems
Research subject
Computer Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-369490 (URN)978-91-513-0538-7 (ISBN)
Public defence
2019-02-15, Sal VIII, Universitetshuset, Biskopsgatan 3, Uppsala, 09:15 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Projects
UPMARC
Available from: 2019-01-23 Created: 2018-12-14 Last updated: 2019-12-02

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Nikoleris, NikosHagersten, ErikCarlson, Trevor E.

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