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一个丰富多样的模拟器、仿真器和基准集。每个独立的研究小组都有自己喜欢的工具，可能建立在现有的或定制的基础设施之上。这些工件在实验中用于评估设计权衡，并分析对性能、能源、可靠性和其他指标的影响。不幸的是，使用这些工具进行评估的方式往往阻碍了科学方法的应用。当这些工件可用时，使用各种工件（例如，模拟工具和基准测试）的门槛通常很高。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。此外，由于状态空间爆炸，单个组很难探索所有的变化。为了证明可以解决这些问题以改进计算机体系结构评估，这个试点项目采取了第一步来开发一个开放访问的存储库，该存储库允许在计算机体系结构中的广泛涉众之间共享工件和实验结果。项目构建并参与活跃的用户社区，建立治理和访问策略，并确定存储库软件服务的需求。这个初始原型为社区提供了提供反馈和建议的机会，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，共享模拟器和实验，进行负责任和可重复的实验，可以节省大量的集体努力。它避免了重新实现和重新创建工具、实验、数据集、基准等的负担。这种节省的精力和更可靠、更完整的评估可以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.