Basis Token Consistency: A Practical Mechanism for Strong Web Cache Consistency

With web caching and cache-related services like CDNs and edge services playing an increasingly significant role in the modern internet, the problem of the weak consistency and coherence provisions in current web protocols is becoming increasingly significant and drawing the attention of the standards community [LCD01]. Toward this end, we present definitions of consistency and coherence for web-like environments, that is, distributed client-server information systems where the semantics of interactions with resource are more general than the read/write operations found in memory hierarchies and distributed file systems. We then present a brief review of proposed mechanisms which strengthen the consistency of caches in the web, focusing upon their conceptual contributions and their weaknesses in real-world practice. These insights motivate a new mechanism, which we call "Basis Token Consistency" or BTC; when implemented at the server, this mechanism allows any client (independent of the presence and conformity of any intermediaries) to maintain a self-consistent view of the server's state. This is accomplished by annotating responses with additional per-resource application information which allows client caches to recognize the obsolescence of currently cached entities and identify responses from other caches which are already stale in light of what has already been seen. The mechanism requires no deviation from the existing client-server communication model, and does not require servers to maintain any additional per-client state. We discuss how our mechanism could be integrated into a fragment-assembling Content Management System (CMS), and present a simulation-driven performance comparison between the BTC algorithm and the use of the Time-To-Live (TTL) heuristic.National Science Foundation (ANI-9986397, ANI-0095988

JSON Schemas with Semantic Annotations Supporting Data Translation

Funding Information: Funding: This research was partially funded by EU ECSEL Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement n° 826452 (project Arrowhead Tools).As service-oriented architectures are a solution for large distributed systems, interoperabil-ity between these systems, which are often heterogeneous, can be a challenge due to the different syntax and semantics of the exchanged messages or even different data interchange formats. This paper addresses the data interchange format and data interoperability issues between XML-based and JSON-based systems. It proposes novel annotation mechanisms to add semantic annotations and complement date values to JSON Schemas, enabling an interoperability approach for JSON-based systems that, until now, was only possible for XML-based systems. A set of algorithms supporting the translation from JSON Schema to XML Schema, JSON to XML, and XML to JSON is also pro-posed. These algorithms were implemented in an existing prototype tool, which now supports these systems’ interoperability through semantic compatibility verification and the automatic generation of translators.publishersversionpublishe

Runtime-assisted optimizations in the on-chip memory hierarchy

Following Moore's Law, the number of transistors on chip has been increasing exponentially, which has led to the increasing complexity of modern processors. As a result, the efficient programming of such systems has become more difficult. Many programming models have been developed to answer this issue. Of particular interest are task-based programming models that employ simple annotations to define parallel work in an application. The information available at the level of the runtime systems associated with these programming models offers great potential for improving hardware design. Moreover, due to technological limitations, Moore's Law is predicted to eventually come to an end, so novel paradigms are necessary to maintain the current performance improvement trends. The main goal of this thesis is to exploit the knowledge about a parallel application available at the runtime system level to improve the design of the on-chip memory hierarchy. The coupling of the runtime system and the microprocessor enables a better hardware design without hurting the programmability. The first contribution is a set of insertion policies for shared last-level caches that exploit information about tasks and task data dependencies. The intuition behind this proposal revolves around the observation that parallel threads exhibit different memory access patterns. Even within the same thread, accesses to different variables often follow distinct patterns. The proposed policies insert cache lines into different logical positions depending on the dependency type and task type to which the corresponding memory request belongs. The second proposal optimizes the execution of reductions, defined as a programming pattern that combines input data to form the resulting reduction variable. This is achieved with a runtime-assisted technique for performing reductions in the processor's cache hierarchy. The proposal's goal is to be a universally applicable solution regardless of the reduction variable type, size and access pattern. On the software level, the programming model is extended to let a programmer specify the reduction variables for tasks, as well as the desired cache level where a certain reduction will be performed. The source-to-source compiler and the runtime system are extended to translate and forward this information to the underlying hardware. On the hardware level, private and shared caches are equipped with functional units and the accompanying logic to perform reductions at the cache level. This design avoids unnecessary data movements to the core and back as the data is operated at the place where it resides. The third contribution is a runtime-assisted prioritization scheme for memory requests inside the on-chip memory hierarchy. The proposal is based on the notion of a critical path in the context of parallel codes and a known fact that accelerating critical tasks reduces the execution time of the whole application. In the context of this work, task criticality is observed at a level of a task type as it enables simple annotation by the programmer. The acceleration of critical tasks is achieved by the prioritization of corresponding memory requests in the microprocessor.Siguiendo la ley de Moore, el número de transistores en los chips ha crecido exponencialmente, lo que ha comportado una mayor complejidad en los procesadores modernos y, como resultado, de la dificultad de la programación eficiente de estos sistemas. Se han desarrollado muchos modelos de programación para resolver este problema; un ejemplo particular son los modelos de programación basados en tareas, que emplean anotaciones sencillas para definir los Trabajos paralelos de una aplicación. La información de que disponen los sistemas en tiempo de ejecución (runtime systems) asociada con estos modelos de programación ofrece un enorme potencial para la mejora del diseño del hardware. Por otro lado, las limitaciones tecnológicas hacen que la ley de Moore pueda dejar de cumplirse próximamente, por lo que se necesitan paradigmas nuevos para mantener las tendencias actuales de mejora de rendimiento. El objetivo principal de esta tesis es aprovechar el conocimiento de las aplicaciones paral·leles de que dispone el runtime system para mejorar el diseño de la jerarquía de memoria del chip. El acoplamiento del runtime system junto con el microprocesador permite realizar mejores diseños hardware sin afectar Negativamente en la programabilidad de dichos sistemas. La primera contribución de esta tesis consiste en un conjunto de políticas de inserción para las memorias caché compartidas de último nivel que aprovecha la información de las tareas y las dependencias de datos entre estas. La intuición tras esta propuesta se basa en la observación de que los hilos de ejecución paralelos muestran distintos patrones de acceso a memoria e, incluso dentro del mismo hilo, los accesos a diferentes variables a menudo siguen patrones distintos. Las políticas que se proponen insertan líneas de caché en posiciones lógicas diferentes en función de los tipos de dependencia y tarea a los que corresponde la petición de memoria. La segunda propuesta optimiza la ejecución de las reducciones, que se definen como un patrón de programación que combina datos de entrada para conseguir la variable de reducción como resultado. Esto se consigue mediante una técnica asistida por el runtime system para la realización de reducciones en la jerarquía de la caché del procesador, con el objetivo de ser una solución aplicable de forma universal sin depender del tipo de la variable de la reducción, su tamaño o el patrón de acceso. A nivel de software, el modelo de programación se extiende para que el programador especifique las variables de reducción de las tareas, así como el nivel de caché escogido para que se realice una determinada reducción. El compilador fuente a Fuente (compilador source-to-source) y el runtime ssytem se modifican para que traduzcan y pasen esta información al hardware subyacente, evitando así movimientos de datos innecesarios hacia y desde el núcleo del procesador, al realizarse la operación donde se encuentran los datos de la misma. La tercera contribución proporciona un esquema de priorización asistido por el runtime system para peticiones de memoria dentro de la jerarquía de memoria del chip. La propuesta se basa en la noción de camino crítico en el contexto de los códigos paralelos y en el hecho conocido de que acelerar tareas críticas reduce el tiempo de ejecución de la aplicación completa. En el contexto de este trabajo, la criticidad de las tareas se considera a nivel del tipo de tarea ya que permite que el programador las indique mediante anotaciones sencillas. La aceleración de las tareas críticas se consigue priorizando las correspondientes peticiones de memoria en el microprocesador.Seguint la llei de Moore, el nombre de transistors que contenen els xips ha patit un creixement exponencial, fet que ha provocat un augment de la complexitat dels processadors moderns i, per tant, de la dificultat de la programació eficient d’aquests sistemes. Per intentar solucionar-ho, s’han desenvolupat diversos models de programació; un exemple particular en són els models basats en tasques, que fan servir anotacions senzilles per definir treballs paral·lels dins d’una aplicació. La informació que hi ha al nivell dels sistemes en temps d’execució (runtime systems) associada amb aquests models de programació ofereix un gran potencial a l’hora de millorar el disseny del maquinari. D’altra banda, les limitacions tecnològiques fan que la llei de Moore pugui deixar de complir-se properament, per la qual cosa calen nous paradigmes per mantenir les tendències actuals en la millora de rendiment. L’objectiu principal d’aquesta tesi és aprofitar els coneixements que el runtime System té d’una aplicació paral·lela per millorar el disseny de la jerarquia de memòria dins el xip. L’acoblament del runtime system i el microprocessador permet millorar el disseny del maquinari sense malmetre la programabilitat d’aquests sistemes. La primera contribució d’aquesta tesi consisteix en un conjunt de polítiques d’inserció a les memòries cau (cache memories) compartides d’últim nivell que aprofita informació sobre tasques i les dependències de dades entre aquestes. La intuïció que hi ha al darrere d’aquesta proposta es basa en el fet que els fils d’execució paral·lels mostren diferents patrons d’accés a la memòria; fins i tot dins el mateix fil, els accessos a variables diferents sovint segueixen patrons diferents. Les polítiques que s’hi proposen insereixen línies de la memòria cau a diferents ubicacions lògiques en funció dels tipus de dependència i de tasca als quals correspon la petició de memòria. La segona proposta optimitza l’execució de les reduccions, que es defineixen com un patró de programació que combina dades d’entrada per aconseguir la variable de reducció com a resultat. Això s’aconsegueix mitjançant una tècnica assistida pel runtime system per dur a terme reduccions en la jerarquia de la memòria cau del processador, amb l’objectiu que la proposta sigui aplicable de manera universal, sense dependre del tipus de la variable a la qual es realitza la reducció, la seva mida o el patró d’accés. A nivell de programari, es realitza una extensió del model de programació per facilitar que el programador especifiqui les variables de les reduccions que usaran les tasques, així com el nivell de memòria cau desitjat on s’hauria de realitzar una certa reducció. El compilador font a font (compilador source-to-source) i el runtime system s’amplien per traduir i passar aquesta informació al maquinari subjacent. A nivell de maquinari, les memòries cau privades i compartides s’equipen amb unitats funcionals i la lògica corresponent per poder dur a terme les reduccions a la pròpia memòria cau, evitant així moviments de dades innecessaris entre el nucli del processador i la jerarquia de memòria. La tercera contribució proporciona un esquema de priorització assistit pel runtime System per peticions de memòria dins de la jerarquia de memòria del xip. La proposta es basa en la noció de camí crític en el context dels codis paral·lels i en el fet conegut que l’acceleració de les tasques que formen part del camí crític redueix el temps d’execució de l’aplicació sencera. En el context d’aquest treball, la criticitat de les tasques s’observa al nivell del seu tipus ja que permet que el programador les indiqui mitjançant anotacions senzilles. L’acceleració de les tasques crítiques s’aconsegueix prioritzant les corresponents peticions de memòria dins el microprocessador

Noise Pollution: A Multi-Step Approach to Assessing the Consequences of (Not) Validating Search Terms on Automated Content Analyses

Advances in analytical methodologies and an avalanche of digitized data have opened new avenues for (digital) journalism research—and with it, new challenges. One of these challenges concerns the sampling and evaluation of data using (non-validated) search terms in combination with automated content analyses. This challenge has largely been neglected by research, which is surprising, considering that noise slipping in during the process of data collection can generate great methodological concerns. To address this gap, we first offer a systematic interdisciplinary literature review, revealing that the validation of search terms is far from acknowledged as a required standard procedure, both in and beyond journalism research. Second, we assess the consequences of validating search terms, using a multi-step approach and investigating common research topics from the field of (digital) journalism research. Our findings show that careless application of non-validated search terms has its pitfalls: while scattershot search terms can make sense in initial data exploration, final inferences based on insufficiently validated search terms are at higher risk of being obscured by noise. Consequently, we provide a step-by-step recommendation for developing and validating search terms

Co-designing reliability and performance for datacenter memory

Memory is one of the key components that affects reliability and performance of datacenter servers. Memory in today’s servers is organized and shared in several ways to provide the most performant and efficient access to data. For example, cache hierarchy in multi-core chips to reduce access latency, non-uniform memory access (NUMA) in multi-socket servers to improve scalability, disaggregation to increase memory capacity. In all these organizations, hardware coherence protocols are used to maintain memory consistency of this shared memory and implicitly move data to the requesting cores. This thesis aims to provide fault-tolerance against newer models of failure in the organization of memory in datacenter servers. While designing for improved reliability, this thesis explores solutions that can also enhance performance of applications. The solutions build over modern coherence protocols to achieve these properties. First, we observe that DRAM memory system failure rates have increased, demanding stronger forms of memory reliability. To combat this, the thesis proposes Dvé, a hardware driven replication mechanism where data blocks are replicated across two different memory controllers in a cache-coherent NUMA system. Data blocks are accompanied by a code with strong error detection capabilities so that when an error is detected, correction is performed using the replica. Dvé’s organization offers two independent points of access to data which enables: (a) strong error correction that can recover from a range of faults affecting any of the components in the memory and (b) higher performance by providing another nearer point of memory access. Dvé’s coherent replication keeps the replicas in sync for reliability and also provides coherent access to read replicas during fault-free operation for improved performance. Dvé can flexibly provide these benefits on-demand at runtime. Next, we observe that the coherence protocol itself requires to be hardened against failures. Memory in datacenter servers is being disaggregated from the compute servers into dedicated memory servers, driven by standards like CXL. CXL specifies the coherence protocol semantics for compute servers to access and cache data from a shared region in the disaggregated memory. However, the CXL specification lacks the requisite level of fault-tolerance necessary to operate at an inter-server scale within the datacenter. Compute servers can fail or be unresponsive in the datacenter and therefore, it is important that the coherence protocol remain available in the presence of such failures. The thesis proposes Āpta, a CXL-based, shared disaggregated memory system for keeping the cached data consistent without compromising availability in the face of compute server failures. Āpta architects a high-performance fault-tolerant object-granular memory server that significantly improves performance for stateless function-as-a-service (FaaS) datacenter applications

Aspects of Code Generation and Data Transfer Techniques for Modern Parallel Architectures

Im Bereich der Prozessorarchitekturen hat sich der Fokus neuer Entwicklungen von immer höheren Taktfrequenzen hin zu immer mehr Kernen auf einem Chip verschoben. Eine hohe Kernanzahl ermöglicht es unterschiedlich leistungsfähige Kerne anzubieten, und sogar dedizierte Kerne mit speziellen Befehlssätzen. Die Entwicklung für solch heterogene Plattformen ist herausfordernd und benötigt entsprechende Unterstützung von Entwicklungswerkzeugen, wie beispielsweise Übersetzern. Neben ihrer heterogenen Kernstruktur gibt es eine zweite Dimension, die die Entwicklung für solche Architekturen anspruchsvoll macht: ihre Speicherstruktur. Die Aufrechterhaltung von globaler Cache-Kohärenz erschwert das Erreichen hoher Kernzahlen. Hardwarebasierte Cache-Kohärenz-Protokolle skalieren entweder schlecht, oder sind kompliziert und führen zu Problemen bei Ausführungszeit und Energieeffizienz. Eine radikale Lösung dieses Problems stellt die Abschaffung der globalen Cache-Kohärenz dar. Jedoch ist es schwierig, bestehende Programmiermodelle effizient auf solch eine Hardware-Architektur mit schwachen Garantien abzubilden. Der erste Teil dieser Dissertation beschäftigt sich Datentransfertechniken für nicht-cache-kohärente Architekturen mit gemeinsamem Speicher. Diese Architekturen bieten einen gemeinsamen physikalischen Adressraum, implementieren aber keine hardwarebasierte Kohärenz zwischen allen Caches des Systems. Die logische Partitionierung des gemeinsamen Speichers ermöglicht die sichere Programmierung einer solchen Plattform. Im Allgemeinen erzeugt dies die Notwendigkeit Daten zwischen Speicherpartitionen zu kopieren. Wir untersuchen die Übersetzung für invasive Architekturen, einer Familie von nicht-cache-kohärenten Vielkernarchitekturen. Wir betrachten die effiziente Implementierung von Datentransfers sowohl einfacher als auch komplexer Datenstrukturen auf invasiven Architekturen. Insbesondere schlagen wir eine neuartige Technik zum Kopieren komplexer verzeigerter Datenstrukturen vor, die ohne Serialisierung auskommt. Hierzu verallgemeinern wir den Objekt-Klon-Ansatz mit übersetzergesteuerter automatischer software-basierter Kohärenz, sodass er auch im Kontext nicht-kohärenter Caches funktioniert. Wir präsentieren Implementierungen mehrerer Datentransfertechniken im Rahmen eines existierenden Übersetzers und seines Laufzeitsystems. Wir führen eine ausführliche Auswertung dieser Implementierungen auf einem FPGA-basierten Prototypen einer invasiven Architektur durch. Schließlich schlagen wir vor, Hardwareunterstützung für bereichsbasierte Cache-Operationen hinzuzufügen und beschreiben und bewerten mögliche Implementierungen und deren Kosten. Der zweite Teil dieser Dissertation befasst sich mit der Beschleunigung von Shuffle-Code, der bei der Registerzuteilung auftritt, durch die Verwendung von Permutationsbefehlen. Die Aufgabe der Registerzuteilung während der Programmübersetzung ist die Abbildung von Programmvariablen auf Maschinenregister. Während der Registerzuteilung erzeugt der Übersetzer Shuffle-Code, der aus Kopier- und Tauschbefehlen besteht, um Werte zwischen Registern zu transferieren. Abhängig von der Qualität der Registerzuteilung und der Zahl der verfügbaren Register kann eine große Menge an Shuffle-Code erzeugt werden. Wir schlagen vor, die Ausführung von Shuffle-Code mit Hilfe von neuartigen Permutationsbefehlen zu beschleunigen, die die Inhalte von einigen Registern in einem Taktzyklus beliebig permutieren. Um die Machbarkeit dieser Idee zu demonstrieren, erweitern wir zunächst ein bestehendes RISC-Befehlsformat um Permutationsbefehle. Anschließend beschreiben wir, wie die vorgeschlagenen Permutationsbefehle in einer bestehenden RISC-Architektur implementiert werden können. Dann entwickeln wir zwei Verfahren zur Codeerzeugung, die die Permutationsbefehle ausnutzen, um Shuffle-Code zu beschleunigen: eine schnelle Heuristik und einen auf dynamischer Programmierung basierenden optimalen Ansatz. Wir beweisen Qualitäts- und Korrektheitseingeschaften beider Ansätze und zeigen die Optimalität des zweiten Ansatzes. Im Folgenden implementieren wir beide Codeerzeugungsverfahren in einem Übersetzer und untersuchen sowie vergleichen deren Codequalität ausführlich mit Hilfe standardisierter Benchmarks. Zunächst messen wir die genaue Zahl der dynamisch ausgeführten Befehle, welche wir folgend validieren, indem wir Programmlaufzeiten auf einer FPGA-basierten Prototypimplementierung der um Permutationsbefehle erweiterten RISC-Architektur messen. Schließlich argumentieren wir, dass Permutationsbefehle auf modernen Out-Of-Order-Prozessorarchitekturen, die bereits Registerumbenennung unterstützen, mit wenig Aufwand implementierbar sind

Locality Awareness for Task Parallel Computation

The task parallel programming model allows programmers to express concurrency at a high level of abstraction and places the burden of scheduling parallel execution on the run time system. Efficient scheduling of tasks on multi-socket multicore shared memory systems requires careful consideration of an increasingly complex memory hierarchy, including shared caches and non-uniform memory access (NUMA) characteristics. In this dissertation, we study the performance impact of these issues and other performance factors that limit parallel speedup in task parallel program executions and propose new scheduling strategies to improve performance. Our performance model characterizes lost efficiency in terms of overhead time, idle time, and work time inflation due to increased data access costs. We introduce a hierarchical run time scheduler that combines the benefits of work stealing and parallel depth-first schedulers. Matching the scheduler design to the memory hierarchy of multicore NUMA systems limits costly remote data accesses while maintaining load balance and exploiting constructive data sharing among threads that share a cache. We also propose a locality- based scheduling framework based on locality domains and comprising an API for programmers to specify application locality and a scheduler that honors those specifications. Implementations of the hierarchical and locality-based schedulers in our OpenMP run time system exhibit performance improvements on several task parallel benchmark applications over existing scheduling strategies and production OpenMP run time systems.Doctor of Philosoph

On the simulation and design of manycore CMPs

The progression of Moore’s Law has resulted in both embedded and performance computing systems which use an ever increasing number of processing cores integrated in a single chip. Commercial systems are now available which provide hundreds of cores, and academics have proposed architectures for up to 1024 cores. Embedded multicores are increasingly popular as it is easier to guarantee hard-realtime constraints using individual cores dedicated for tasks, than to use traditional time-multiplexed processing. However, finding the optimal hardware configuration to meet these requirements at minimum cost requires extensive trial and error approaches to investigate the design space. This thesis tackles the problems encountered in the design of these large scale multicore systems by first addressing the problem of fast, detailed micro-architectural simulation. Initially addressing embedded systems, this work exploits the lack of hardware cache-coherence support in many deeply embedded systems to increase the available parallelism in the simulation. Then, through partitioning the NoC and using packet counting and cycle skipping reduces the amount of computation required to accurately model the NoC interconnect. In combination, this enables simulation speeds significantly higher than the state of the art, while maintaining less error, when compared to real hardware, than any similar simulator. Simulation speeds reach up to 370MIPS (Million (target) Instructions Per Second), or 110MHz, which is better than typical FPGA prototypes, and approaching final ASIC production speeds. This is achieved while maintaining an error of only 2.1%, significantly lower than other similar simulators. The thesis continues by scaling the simulator past large embedded systems up to 64-1024 core processors, adding support for coherent architectures using the same packet counting techniques along with low overhead context switching to enable the simulation of such large systems with stricter synchronisation requirements. The new interconnect model was partitioned to enable parallel simulation to further improve simulation speeds in a manner which did not sacrifice any accuracy. These innovations were leveraged to investigate significant novel energy saving optimisations to the coherency protocol, processor ISA, and processor micro-architecture. By introducing a new instruction, with the name wait-on-address, the energy spent during spin-wait style synchronisation events can be significantly reduced. This functions by putting the core into a low-power idle state while the cache line of the indicated address is monitored for coherency action. Upon an update or invalidation (or traditional timer or external interrupts) the core will resume execution, but the active energy of running the core pipeline and repeatedly accessing the data and instruction caches is effectively reduced to static idle power. The thesis also shows that existing combined software-hardware schemes to track data regions which do not require coherency can adequately address the directory-associativity problem, and introduces a new coherency sharer encoding which reduces the energy consumed by sharer invalidations when sharers are grouped closely together, such as would be the case with a system running many tasks with a small degree of parallelism in each. The research concludes by using the extremely fast simulation speeds developed to produce a large set of training data, collecting various runtime and energy statistics for a wide range of embedded applications on a huge diverse range of potential MPSoC designs. This data was used to train a series of machine learning based models which were then evaluated on their capacity to predict performance characteristics of unseen workload combinations across the explored MPSoC design space, using only two sample simulations, with promising results from some of the machine learning techniques. The models were then used to produce a ranking of predicted performance across the design space, and on average Random Forest was able to predict the best design within 89% of the runtime performance of the actual best tested design, and better than 93% of the alternative design space. When predicting for a weighted metric of energy, delay and area, Random Forest on average produced results within 93% of the optimum result. In summary this thesis improves upon the state of the art for cycle accurate multicore simulation, introduces novel energy saving changes the the ISA and microarchitecture of future multicore processors, and demonstrates the viability of machine learning techniques to significantly accelerate the design space exploration required to bring a new manycore design to market

Programming Languages and Systems

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 31st European Symposium on Programming, ESOP 2022, which was held during April 5-7, 2022, in Munich, Germany, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2022. The 21 regular papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 64 submissions. They deal with fundamental issues in the specification, design, analysis, and implementation of programming languages and systems