System-wide analyzer of performance: Performance analysis of multi-core computing systems with limited resources

In this paper a new dynamic performance analyzer intended for uni- and multi-core computing systems with limited resources is presented and described. This analyzer is called SWAP (system-wide analyzer of performance). Initial version of SWAP tool, called as ELP1 (embedded Linux Probe 1), was developed in Samsung Research Center (SRC) in 2006. This tool uses functional interface of Kprobes to provide the dynamic instrumentation of Linux kernel for ARM and MIPS architectures. ELP1 functionality allowed collecting raw data information (suc as register values, memory dump, etc) for any user predefined function of Linux kernel. Next revision of ELP1 tool, ELP2, was developed in SRC in 2007. ELP2 functionality allowed collecting traces from predefined functions in Linux kernel that contains general information of system characterization. Traces in ELP2 contained information from main Linux kernel functions such as arguments, return values and content of global kernel structures. ELP2 had pseudo-graphical interface on target that allows stand-alone monitoring of the system without any network connection. SWAP can monitor both kernel and application levels of the Linux system. Additional to ELP2 functionality, SWAP provides evaluation of the set of important system characteristics for main Linux subsystems (such as memory management, process management, file system and network). Also SWAP has some automatic performance analysis features such as trace comparison, automatic bottleneck region localization, etc.