Trace-Driven Evaluations of the Memory Behavior of Large Commercial Applications

计算机体系结构的研究是基于对应用程序行为的实验评估。高端企业服务器体系结构中的一个关键问题是内存层次结构的设计，它必须被设计为支持当前和未来的数据密集型应用程序。很少有大型商业应用程序的内存行为评估，特别是在公共领域。这里提出的研究是基于IBM和USC之间的合作，利用IBM沃森服务器性能实验室来探索高端商业应用程序的内存行为。更具体地说，它建议使用IBM的IBM服务器板来收集运行大型，微调OLTP，DSS和Web工作负载的现代服务器机器的总线活动跟踪。由于跟踪的庞大规模，事务记录的样本将只在选定的时间间隔内收集。除了获得跟踪，这个项目的目标是描述这些应用程序的内存行为，评估未来高端商业服务器的替代内存层次结构，并探索商业系统的新的多处理器体系结构。IBM沃森服务器性能实验室提供的实验环境花费了数百万美元和多年的努力来设置。这项拟议的研究将利用这些努力。这是一个收集和传播痕迹和实验数据的独特机会，这在任何合理的研究预算下都几乎不可能获得。

Computer architecture research is based on experimental evaluation of application behavior.One critical issue in the architecture of high-end enterprise servers is the design of the memoryhierarchy, which must be designed to support current and future data-intensive applications.Few evaluations of the memory behavior of large commercial applications exist, especially in thepublic domain. The research proposed here is based on a collaboration between IBM and USC totake advantage of the IBM Watson Server Performance Laboratory to explore the memorybehavior of high-end commercial applications.More specifically, it is proposed to use the IBM MemorIES board to collect bus activitytraces from a modern server machine running large, finely tuned OLTP, DSS and Web workloads.Because of the sheer size of the traces, samples of transaction records will be collected only in selected time intervals.Besides obtaining traces, the goal of this project is to characterize the memorybehavior of these applications, to evaluate alternative memory hierarchies for futurehigh-end commercial servers, and to explore new multiprocessor architectures forcommercial systems. The experimental environment provided by the IBM Watson Server Performance Laboratorycost millions of dollars and years of effort to setup. This proposed research will leverage theseefforts. It is a unique opportunity to collect and disseminate traces and experimental datawhich would be practically impossible to obtain under any reasonable research budget.