Casale, G

Muntz, RR

Serazzi, G

ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review

English

CASALE, GIULIANO

SERAZZI, GIUSEPPE

R. R. Muntz

Archivio istituzionale della ricerca - Politecnico di Milano

Special Issue on Tools for Computer Performance Modeling and reliability Analysis

Spiral - Imperial College Digital Repository

Special Issue on Tools for Computer PerformanceModelling and Reliability AnalysisGiuliano CasaleSAP ResearchCEC Belfast, TEIC BuildingShore Road, NewtownabbeyBT37 0QB, UKgiuliano.casale@sap.comRichard R. MuntzUCLAComputer Science Dept.3277A Boelter HallLos Angeles, CA 90095-1596muntz@cs.ucla.eduGiuseppe SerazziPolitecnico di MilanoDip. di Elettr. e InformazioneVia Ponzio 34/5Milano, Italy, 20133giuseppe.serazzi@polimi.itThis special issue offers an up-to-date overview on software toolsfor computer performance modelling and reliability analysis thatare currently developed by research groups in academia. Becausof the ever increasing complexity of computer systems, research rshave developed throughout the years many analytical and simu-lative approaches to evaluate performance and reliabilityof real-world systems. However, the mathematical skills required to un-derstand some of these results are often a barrier for their wide-spread adoption as a part of practitioners tend to perceive rsea chresults on modeling as too complex to be useful in their problems.Software tools represent a notable exception to this barrier, as theytend to hide most of the mathematical details of the modelingoranalytical technique. Further, the learning curve of userscan bemade faster by distributing examples or graphical interfaces withcontext-sensitive hints.Although software tools represent an effective way to conveymodeling research result into practical applications, we fe l thatmore should be done in advertising to the general public whattoolsare available and how they differ in terms of functionalities andmodeling approaches used. For example, we are not aware of anyweb page listing the available academic performance and reliabilitytools. Therefore, the chances of a tool of becoming popular seemto be left either to the individual action of the authors or tothe pop-ularity of the web platform on which the tool is distributed (e.g.,Sourceforge). The eleven invited papers in this special issue tryto help in this direction by reviewing the general characteris ics ofsome popular tools for performance and reliability analysis. Eachpaper presents a general description of tool features together witha discussion on upcoming extensions. Table 1 overviews the mainfeatures of the tools presented in this special issue.GreatSPN is presented in the first paper of the special issue,titled “The GreatSPN Tool: Recent Enhancements” authored bySoheib Baarir, Marco Beccuti, Davide Cerotti, Massimiliano DePierro, Susanna Donatelli, and Giuliana Franceschinis. The tool isspecifically tailored to the solution of Generalized Stochastic PetriNets (GSPNs) and Stochastic Well-Formed Nets (SWNs) and canperform a variety of evaluations such as structural analyses, tate-space analysis, simulation, Markov chain generation.Java Modelling Tools (JMT) is a suite of applications for queue-ing network analysis and workload characterization. The tool ispresented in the paper “JMT Performance Engineering Tools forSystem Modeling” authored by Marco Bertoli, Giuliano Casale,and Giuseppe Serazzi. JMT supports product-form and non-prduct-form networks, what-if analysis, wizard-based user interaction, anda module for workload characterization from measured traces.The Möbius framework, presented in the paper “Performanceand Dependability Modeling with Möbius” by Shravan Gaonkar,GREATSPNJMTMÖBIUS+TRAVIANDOOPEDOPEPAECLIPSEPLUGINPIPE2PRISMQPMESHARPESMARTTANGRAM-IIFault Trees ∗ ∗Markov Chains ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗Queueing Networks ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗Stoch. Activ. Networks ∗Prob. Model Checking ∗Stoch. Petri Nets ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗Stoch. Process Algebra ∗ ∗Composite/Hier. Models ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗Approximate Analytical ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗Exact Analytical ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗Transient Analysis ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗GUI/Graphical Eval. ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗Numerical Optimization ∗Simulation ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗Workload Analysis ∗ ∗Table 1: Main features of tools presented in the special issueKen Keefe, Eric Rozier, William H. Sanders, Ruth Lamprecht,andPeter Kemper, is a multi-paradigm environment that allows thespecification of composite performance and reliability models basedon different formalisms such as stochastic activity networks (SANs),fault trees, and the PEPA stochastic process algebra. Möbius simu-lation traces can be exported in XML to the Traviando visualizationtool for model validation and statistical analysis.OPEDo is a software tool for the numerical optimization of per-formance or dependability metrics in discrete event system. Theapplication is described in the paper “OPEDo: A Tool for the Op-timization of Performance and Dependability Models”, by MarkusArns, Peter Buchholz, and Dennis Müller. OPEDo implementslo-cal, global, and hybrid search methods which iteratively evaluatethe response surface seeking for the optimum. OPEDo considersthe underlying model as black-box, thus it supports the interfacingto external applications for model specification and evaluation.PEPA Eclipse Plug-in, presented in the paper “The PEPA EclipsePlugin” by Mirco Tribastone, Adam Duguid, and Stephen Gilmore,supports the definition of stochastic process algebra models basedon the Performance Evaluation Process Algebra (PEPA) language.The tool runs inside the open source Eclipse workspace and sup-ports seamless upgrade to newer version through via the Eclipseinterface. PEPA Eclipse Plug-in is centered around the Pepato li-brary for static, Markovian, and ODE analysis of PEPA modelsbymeans of numerical and simulative methods.The paper “PIPE2: A Tool for the Performance Evaluation ofGeneralised Stochastic Petri Nets” by Nicholas J. Dingle, WilliamJ. Knottenbelt, and Tamas Suto describes the PIPE2 tool for analy-sis of Generalized Stochastic Petri Nets (GSPNs). The applicationsupports structural and performance analysis modules for evalua-tion of GSPNs. PIPE2 integrates an original formalism for graphi-cal specification of performance queries and adopts a client-s rversoftware architecture that allows for parallel or distributed modelanalysis.The PRISM tool presented in “PRISM: Probabilistic Model Check-ing for Performance and Reliability Analysis” by Marta Kwiatkowska,Gethin Norman, and David Parker, is an open-source probabilis-tic model checker that supports Markov chains, Markov decisionprocesses, and reward models. PRISM integrates a native lan-guage for textual modeling and allows for the efficient validtionof model properties based on a temporal logic approach. The im-plemented evaluation techniques include discrete-event simulation,numerical and graph-theoretical model-checking algorithms, andsymbolic techniques based on binary decision diagrams (BDD) modelrepresentations.The QPME tool described in “QPME A Performance Model-ing Tool Based on Queueing Petri Nets” by Samuel Kounev andChristofer Dutz supports the specification of performance modelsbased on the Queueing Petri Nets (QPNs) formalism, which allowsthe specification of queueing places within stochastic Petri n ts.The tool allows the evaluation of QPNs by Monte carlo simulationsand has native support for colored tokens, incidence functio s, andseveral performance data collection modes. QPME is integrat dwith the Eclipse Rich Content Platform through the QPE colored-itor which allows graphical specification of model structure.SHARPE is a tool for semi-symbolic analysis of fault trees, re-liability block diagrams, acyclic series-parallel graphs, acyclic andcyclic Markov and semi-Markov models, GSPNs, and closed prouct-form queueing networks. In “SHARPE at the Age of Twenty Two”by Kishor S. Trivedi and Robin Sahner describe the development ofthe tool as well as advanced features such as exact model decom-position, exponomial distributions and their practical application toreal-world availability models.The SMART tool presented in “Advanced features in SMART:the Stochastic Model checking Analyzer for Reliability andTim-ing” by Gianfranco Ciardo, Andrew S. Miner, and Min Wan, is asoftware package for model-checking and for numerical and simu-lative evaluation of stochastic models which are an extended formof Petri nets. SMART integrates advanced features for compactrepresentation of large scale models based on different types of de-cision diagrams which can be evaluated either exactly or appox-imately. The tool also integrates a simulation module and CTLmodel checking capabilities.TANGRAM-II, described in the paper “The TANGRAM-II In-tegrated Modeling Environment for Computer Systems and Net-works” by Edmundo de Souza e Silva, Daniel R. Figueiredo, andRosa M.M. Lẽao, is a comprehensive suite of tools for systemmod-eling and traffic measurement. The analytical solution engine sup-ports both Markovian and non-Markovian models; the simulationengine can also evaluate generic fluid-models such as fluid Gener-alized Processor Sharing (GPS) and FIFO queues. TANGRAM-IIalso integrates native support for specification of Hybrid MarkovModels and a network measurement engine that can obtain unicastand multicast measurements.Qui finiamo con un acknowledgement agli autori ed a evgenia

Special issue on tools for computer performance modeling and reliability analysis

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Special issue on tools for computer performance modeling and reliability analysis

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