SI2-SSE: A Unified Software Environment to Best Utilize Cache and Memory Systems on Multicores

该项目进一步开发和维护了一套系统和应用软件，通过提供统一的软件环境，多核系统实用程序可以作为各种应用程序的通用功能轻松使用，从而使多核应用程序用户受益。该项目包括以下三项任务。首先，我们进一步改进了我们的高速缓存分区操作系统实用程序，并努力增加了另外两个关键系统实用程序：(1)多核缓冲区高速缓存管理，以防止共享高速缓存的抖动和污染；(2)多核感知同步锁管理，以有效地进行进程分配，使得共同运行的进程可以最大限度地减少多核芯片内的带宽消耗，并跨多个多核芯片。其次，我们继续努力开发软件运行时库，使程序员能够通过为不同进程的不同数据集分配适当的缓存空间和内存模块来显式管理和优化共享缓存使用和内存访问。最后，我们为应用用户提供了一个统一的软件环境。通过一组简单的接口函数，用户可以访问中间件运行时库和系统实用程序，而不需要了解体系结构和系统细节。该项目的广泛和变革性影响可能是巨大的：(1)我们的软件将为大范围的应用程序社区提供有效和可访问的解决方案，以显著提高多核的性能。(2)深入了解应用程序、操作系统和多核体系结构之间的系统交互，将为应用软件的设计和实现提供有价值的指导。(3)软件在线维护公开、广泛、持续使用，这将直接影响开源软件，有助于应用程序用户。(4)该项目的研究和软件开发将为本科生和研究生培养未来在学术界和工业界进行技术创新的能力。

This project further develops and maintains a set of system and application software to benefit application users of multicores by providing a unified software environment where multicore system utilities can be easily used as common functions in various applications. The project consists of the following three tasks. First, we further improve our cache-partitioning OS utility, and make efforts to add two other critical system utilities: (1) Multicore buffer cache management to prevent the shared cache from thrashing and pollution; (2) multicore-aware synchronization lock management to effectively make process assignments such that the co-running processes would minimize bandwidth consumption within a multicore chip and cross multiple multicore chips. Second, we continue our efforts to develop a software runtime library that enables programmers to explicitly manage and optimize the shared cache usage and memory accesses by allocating proper cache space and memory modules for different data sets of different processes. Finally, we provide a unified software environment for application users. With a set of easy interface functions, the users can access both middleware runtime library and the system utilities without a requirement of knowing architectural and system details. The broader and transformative impact of the project can be significant: (1) Our software will provide effective and accessible solutions for significant performance improvement in multicores for a large scope of application community. (2) Gaining the insights into system interactions among applications, OS, and multicore architecture, we will provide valuable guidance for designs and implementations of application software. (3) The software is online with a maintenance for a public, wide, and sustained usage, which will directly impact open source software, and contribute to application users. (4) The research and software development of the project will train both undergraduate and graduate students for their future technical innovations in academia and industries.