USING HARDWARE MONITORS TO AUTOMATICALLY IMPROVE MEMORY PERFORMANCE

In this thesis, we propose and evaluate several techniques to dynamically increase the memory access locality of scientific and Java server applications running on cache-coherent non-uniform memory access(cc-NUMA) servers. We first introduce a user-level online page migration scheme where applications are profiled using hardware monitors to determine the preferred locations of the memory pages. The pages are then migrated to memory units via system calls. In our approach, both profiling and page migrations are conducted online while the application runs. We also investigate the use of several potential sources of profiles gathered from hardware monitors in dynamic page migration and compare their effectiveness to using profiles from centralized hardware monitors. In particular, we evaluate using profiles from on-chip CPU monitors, valid TLB content and a hypothetical hardware feature. We also introduce a set of techniques to both measure and optimize the memory access locality in Java server applications running on cc-NUMA servers. In particular, we propose the use of several NUMA-aware Java heap layouts for initial object allocation and use of dynamic object migration during garbage collection to move objects local to the processors accessing them most. To evaluate these techniques, we also introduce a new hybrid simulation approach to simulate memory behavior of parallel applications based on gathering a partial trace of memory accesses from hardware monitors during an actual run of an application and extrapolating it to a representative full trace. Our dynamic page migration approach achieved reductions up to 90% in the number of non-local accesses, which resulted in up to a 16% performance improvement. Our results demonstrated that the combinations of inexpensive hardware monitors and a simple migration policy can be effectively used to improve the performance of real scientific applications. Our simulation study demonstrated that cache miss profiles gathered from on-chip hardware monitors, which are typically available in current micro-processors, can be effectively used to guide dynamic page migrations in an application. Our NUMA-aware heap layouts reduced the total number of non-local object accesses in SPECjbb2000 up to 41%, which resulted in up to a 40% reduction in the memory wait time of the workload

Performance Models for Electronic Structure Methods on Modern Computer Architectures

Electronic structure codes are computationally intensive scientic applications used to probe and elucidate chemical processes at an atomic level. Maximizing the performance of these applications on any given hardware platform is vital in order to facilitate larger and more accurate computations. An important part of this endeavor is the development of protocols for measuring performance, and models to describe that performance as a function of system architecture. This thesis makes contributions in both areas, with a focus on shared memory parallel computer architectures and the Gaussian electronic structure code. Shared memory parallel computer systems are increasingly important as hardware man- ufacturers are unable to extract performance improvements by increasing clock frequencies. Instead the emphasis is on using multi-core processors to provide higher performance. These processor chips generally have complex cache hierarchies, and may be coupled together in multi-socket systems which exhibit highly non-uniform memory access (NUMA) characteristics. This work seeks to understand how cache characteristics and memory/thread placement affects the performance of electronic structure codes, and to develop performance models that can be used to describe and predict code performance by accounting for these effects. A protocol for performing memory and thread placement experiments on NUMA systems is presented and its implementation under both the Solaris and Linux operating systems is discussed. A placement distribution model is proposed and subsequently used to guide both memory/thread placement experiments and as an aid in the analysis of results obtained from experiments. In order to describe single threaded performance as a function of cache blocking a simple linear performance model is investigated for use when computing the electron repulsion integrals that lie at the heart of virtually all electronic structure methods. A parametric cache variation study is performed. This is achieved by combining parameters obtained for the linear performance model on existing hardware, with instruction and cache miss counts obtained by simulation, and predictions are made of performance as a function of cache architecture. Extension of the linear performance model to describe multi-threaded performance on complex NUMA architectures is discussed and investigated experimentally. Use of dynamic page migration to improve locality is also considered. Finally the use of large scale electronic structure calculations is demonstrated in a series of calculations aiming to study the charge distribution for a single positive ion solvated within a shell of water molecules of increasing size