Scowl: a tool for characterization of parallel workload and its use on SPLASH-2 application suite

Concentrates on the problem of defining and measuring parameters that characterize typical behavior of parallel applications targeted to distributed shared memory (DSM) systems and shared-memory multiprocessors (SMPs). These parameters can be used as input to various models for performance evaluation in this research area. Furthermore, typical application behaviors can be recognized, which can help to generate new ideas for improvements to memory consistency protocols, adapting them to specific application characteristics. Our study encompasses a variety of parameters, such as frequencies of operations of various access types (private read/writes, shared read/writes, lock operations, barrier operations), the average number of accessed blocks per interval, the average number of modified words, etc. The results presented in this paper are based on the SPLASH-2 (Stanford Parallel Applications for SHared Memory) application suite. The developed instrumentation tool Scowl, along with the applied simulation environment Limes, are publicly available and applicable for performing measurements on other parallel applications as well.