Building CPU stubs to optimize CPU bound systems: An application of dynamic performance stubs.
Date
2011
Authors
Trapp, Peter
Meyer, Markus
Facchi, Christian
Janicke, Helge
Siewe, Francois
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
ISSN
DOI
Volume Title
Publisher
Peer reviewed
Yes
Abstract
Dynamic performance stubs provide a framework
for the simulation of the performance behavior of software
modules and functions. Hence, they can be used as an exten-
sion to software performance engineering methodologies. The
methodology of dynamic performance stubs can be used for a
gain oriented performance improvement. It is also possible to
identify “hidden” bottlenecks and to prioritize optimization
possibilities. Nowadays, the processing power of CPUs is
mainly increased by adding more cores to the architecture.
To have benefits from this, new software is mostly designed
for parallel processing, especially, in large software projects.
As software performance optimizations can be difficult in
these environments, new methodologies have to be defined.
This paper evaluates a possibility to simulate the functional
behavior of software algorithms by the use of the simulated
software functionality. These can be used by the dynamic
performance stub framework, e.g., to build a CPU stub, to
replace the algorithm. Thus, it describes a methodology as well
as an implementation and evaluates both in an industrial case
study. Moreover, it presents an extension to the CPU stubs by
applying these stubs to simulate multi-threaded applications.
The extension is evaluated by a case study as well. We
show show that the functionality of software algorithms can
be replaced by software simulation functions. This stubbing
approach can be used to create dynamic performance stubs,
such as CPU stubs. Additionally, we show that the concept of
CPU stubs can be applied to multi-threaded applications.
Description
Keywords
software performance optimization, CPU bound sys- tems, simulated software functionality, stubs, multi-core, multi- threaded
Citation
Trapp, P. et al. (2011) Building CPU stubs to optimize CPU bound systems: An application of dynamic performance stubs. International Journal on Advances in Software, 4 (1-2), pp. 189-206
Research Institute
Cyber Technology Institute (CTI)