Software support for multiprocessor latency measurement and evaluation

Parallel computing scalability evaluates the extent to which parallel programs and architectures can effectively utilize increasing numbers of processors. In this paper, we compare a group of existing scalability metrics and evaluation models with an experimental metric which uses network latency to measure and evaluate the scalability of parallel programs and architectures. To provide insight into dynamic system performance, we have developed an integrated software environment prototype for measuring and evaluating multiprocessor scalability performance, called Scale-Graph. Scale-Graph uses a graphical instrumentation monitor to collect, measure and analyze latency-related data, and to display scalability performance based on various program execution patterns. The graphical software tool is X-Windows based and is currently implemented on standard workstations to analyze performance data of the KSR-1, a hierarchical ring-based shared-memory architecture.