Increasing the reliability and applicability of measurement-based probabilistic timing analysis

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Automação e Sistemas, Florianópolis, 2019Conforme a complexidade das arquiteturas computacionais aumenta para melhorar desempenho ou reduzir custos, o uso de processadores modernos em Sistemas de Tempo Real (STRs) é prejudicado cada vez mais pelo surgimento de efeitos temporais que dificultam a obtenção de limites confiáveis e precisos para os Worst-Case Execution Times (WCETs) de tarefas. A Análise Temporal Probabilística Baseada em Medições (ATPBM) visa determinar limites probabilísticos de WCET (i.e. pWCETs) aplicando a Teoria de Valores Extremos (TVE) sobre medições de tempos de execução, e é portanto promissora no tratamento da complexidade de hardware no projeto de STRs. Processadores temporalmente aleatorizados foram recentemente propostos para tornar o comportamento temporal de sistemas computacionais mais facilmente analisável através de ferramental probabilístico, e são projetados substituindo informações internas determinísticas ou especulativas por números (pseudo-)aleatórios. A pesquisa cujos resultados são apresentados nesta tese produziu contribuições em duas frentes distintas. Em primeiro lugar, foram propostos e aplicados métodos para avaliar a confiabilidade dos pWCETs produzidos pela ATPBM, baseados na coleta de grandes amostras de tempos de execução e na comparação (1) dos pWCETs com os maiores tempos de execução observados, e (2) das densidades de excedência dos pWCETs com seus valores esperados. Essas avaliações indicaram que modelos probabilísticos da TVE projetados para gerar margens mais precisas podem muitas vezes levar a subestimativas de pWCETs, e recomendou-se então que modelos sobrestimadores devem ser utilizados para obter-se pWCETs mais confiáveis. Em segundo lugar, avaliou-se a hipótese de que técnicas de escalonamento aleatorizado podem beneficiar a análise temporal de tarefas executadas em pipelines multithread através da ATPBM, por levarem os tempos de execução produzidos a atenderem às premissas básicas de aplicabilidade da técnica. Para tal, foram considerados tanto (A) um escalonador puramente aleatório, quanto (B) um escalonador aleatorizado capaz de limitar os efeitos temporais da interferência entre threads, sem comprometer sua analisabilidade pela ATPBM, através de um mecanismo de regulação de elegibilidade baseado em créditos.Abstract: As the complexity of computer architectures grows in order to improve performance and/or to reduce costs, the use of modern processors in the design of Real-Time Systems (RTSs) is increasingly hampered by the emergence of timing effects that challenge determining reliable and tight bounds for tasks' Worst-Case Execution Times (WCETs). The Measurement-Based Probabilistic Timing Analysis (MBPTA) technique aims determining probabilistic WCET bounds (i.e. pWCETs) by applying Extreme Value Theory (EVT) on tasks' execution time measurements, and is hence promising in handling hardware complexity issues within RTSs' design. Hardware-level time-randomized processors were recently proposed as a means to cause computing systems' timing behaviour to become more easily analysable through probabilistic tools, and are designed replacing deterministic or speculative internal information with (pseudo-)random numbers. The scientific research whose outcomes are presented in this thesis produced contributions on two distinct fronts. In first place, we proposed and applied methods for evaluating the reliability of pWCET estimates produced using MBPTA, based on collecting large execution time samples and then comparing (1) the pWCETs against the largest observed execution times, and (2) pWCETs' exceedance densities against their expected values. These evaluations led us to conclude that EVT probabilistic models intended to yield more precise bounds may often lead to pWCET underestimations, and we hence recommended that upper-bounding models should instead be used for deriving pWCETs with increased reliability. In second place, we evaluated the hypothesis that randomized scheduling techniques can benefit the timing analysis of tasks executed on multithread pipelines through MBPTA, by causing the yielded execution times to meet the technique's basic application requirements. For that, we considered both (A) a scheduler that employs a purely random policy, and (B) a randomized scheduler capable of limiting the timing effects of inter-thread interference, without compromising analysability, by using a credit-based eligibility regulation mechanism

Probabilistic-WCET Reliability: Statistical Testing of EVT hypotheses

In recent years, the interest in probabilistic real-time has grown, as a response to the limitations of traditional static Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET) methods, in performing timing analysis of applications running on complex systems, like multi/many-cores and COTS platforms. The probabilistic theory can partially solve this problem, but it requires strong guarantees on the execution time traces, in order to provide safe probabilistic-WCET estimations. These requirements can be verified through suitable statistical tests, as described in this paper. In this work, we identify also challenges and problems of using statistical testing procedures in probabilistic real-time computing, proposing a unified test procedure based on a single index called Probabilistic Predictability Index (PPI). An experimental campaign has been carried out, considering both synthetic and realistic datasets, and the analysis of the impact of the Linux PREEMPT_RT patch on a modern complex platform as a use-case of the proposed index

Current Topics on Risk Analysis: ICRA6 and RISK2015 Conference

Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Current Topics on Risk Analysis: ICRA6 and RISK2015 Conference

Artículos presentados en la International Conference on Risk Analysis ICRA 6/RISK 2015, celebrada en Barcelona del 26 al 29 de mayo de 2015.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version