Modeling and evaluating design alternatives for an on-line instrumentation system: a case study

TitleModeling and evaluating design alternatives for an on-line instrumentation system: a case study
Publication TypeJournal Articles
Year of Publication1998
AuthorsWaheed A, Rover DT, Hollingsworth J
JournalIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
Volume24
Issue6
Pagination451 - 470
Date Published1998/06//
ISBN Number0098-5589
Keywordsalternative system configurations, Application software, batch-and-forward, collect-and-forward, Computer aided software engineering, design alternatives, design decisions, Feedback, IBM SP-2 platform, Instruments, massively parallel processing, model-based evaluation approach, Monitoring, multiprocessing programs, on-line instrumentation system, Paradyn parallel performance measurement tool, PARALLEL PROCESSING, Real time systems, scalability characteristics, software metrics, software tools, Space technology, symmetric multiprocessors, system architectures, system monitoring, System testing, task scheduling policies, tool developers, tree forwarding configuration, Workstations
Abstract

This paper demonstrates the use of a model-based evaluation approach for instrumentation systems (ISs). The overall objective of this study is to provide early feedback to tool developers regarding IS overhead and performance; such feedback helps developers make appropriate design decisions about alternative system configurations and task scheduling policies. We consider three types of system architectures: network of workstations (NOW), symmetric multiprocessors (SMP), and massively parallel processing (MPP) systems. We develop a Resource OCCupancy (ROCC) model for an on-line IS for an existing tool and parameterize it for an IBM SP-2 platform. This model is simulated to answer several “what if” questions regarding two policies to schedule instrumentation data forwarding: collect-and-forward (CF) and batch-and-forward (BF). In addition, this study investigates two alternatives for forwarding the instrumentation data: direct and binary tree forwarding for an MPP system. Simulation results indicate that the BF policy can significantly reduce the overhead and that the tree forwarding configuration exhibits desirable scalability characteristics for MPP systems. Initial measurement-based testing results indicate more than 60 percent reduction in the direct IS overhead when the BF policy was added to Paradyn parallel performance measurement tool

DOI10.1109/32.689402