CI-ADDO-NEW: OCCAM: Open Curation for Computer Architecture Modeling

计算机体系结构研究社区已经创建了丰富多样的模拟器、模拟器和基准程序集合。每个单独的研究小组都有自己的首选工具，可能是建立在现有的或定制的基础设施之上。这些构件在实验中用于评估设计权衡，并分析对性能、能量、可靠性和其他指标的影响。不幸的是，这些工具用于评价的方式往往阻碍科学方法的应用。当这些构件可用时，使用各种构件(即，模拟工具和基准)的进入门槛通常很高。实验很少公开，也不容易被其他研究人员重复，导致不准确的比较。为了证明可以解决这些问题来改进计算机体系结构评估，这个试点项目首先开发了一个开放访问库，允许计算机体系结构中的广泛利益相关者共享人工制品和实验结果。该项目构建并吸引活跃的用户社区，建立治理和访问策略，并确定存储库的软件服务需求。这个最初的原型为社区提供了一个机会来提供反馈和建议，以发展原型并完善其策略。该项目表明，作为科学方法的一部分，通过共享模拟器和实验来进行可靠和可重复的实验，可以节省大量的集体工作。它避免了重新实施和重新创建工具、实验、数据集、基准等的负担。这种节省的工作和更健全和完整的评估可以直接用于为更好的计算机系统创新新的体系结构技术。

The computer architecture research community has created a rich and diverse collection of simulators, emulators, and benchmarks. Each individual research group has its own preferred tools, perhaps built on top of an existing or custom infrastructure. These artifacts are used in experiments to evaluate design trade-offs and to analyze implications to performance, energy, reliability, and other metrics. Unfortunately, the ways in which these tools are used for evaluation often hinder the application of the scientific method. The barrier to entry for using various artifacts (i.e., simulation tools and benchmarks) is usually high, when these artifacts are made available. Experiments are rarely open, nor easily repeatable by other researchers, leading to inaccurate comparisons. Moreover, it is difficult for a single group to explore all variations due to state-space explosion.To demonstrate that these problems can be addressed to improve computer architecture evaluation, this pilot project takes the first steps to develop an open-access repository that permits sharing artifacts and experimental results among a broad group of stakeholders in computer architecture. The project builds and engages an active community of users, establishes governance and access policies, and determines the requirements for software services of the repository. This initial prototype provides the community an opportunity to supply feedback and suggestions to evolve the prototype and refine its policies.The project shows that significant collective effort can be saved by sharing simulators and experiments for accountable and repeatable experimentation as part of the scientific method. It avoids the burden of re-implementing and re-creating tools, experiments, data sets, benchmarks, etc. This savings in effort and more sound and complete evaluation can then be directed on innovating new architectural techniques for better computer systems.