Cache-Aware Virtual Page Management
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Date
2013-02-22T18:55:05Z
Authors
Szlavik, Alexander
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Waterloo
Abstract
With contemporary research focusing its attention primarily on benchmark-driven performance evaluation, studying fundamental memory characteristics has gone by the way-side.
This thesis presents a systematic study of the expected performance characteristics for contemporary multi-core CPUs.
These characteristics are the primary influence on benchmarking variability and need to be quantified if more accurate benchmark results are desired.
With the aid of a new, highly customizable, micro-benchmark suite, these CPU-specific attributes are evaluated and contrasted.
The benchmark tool provides the framework for accurately measuring instruction throughput and integrates hardware performance counters to gain insight into machine-level caching performance.
Additionally, the Linux operating system's impact on cache utilization is evaluated.
With careful virtual memory management, cache-misses may be reduced, significantly contributing to benchmark result stability.
Finally, a popular cache performance model, stack distance profile, is evaluated with respect to contemporary CPU architectures.
While particularly popular in multi-core contention-aware scheduling projects, modern incarnations of the model fail to account for trends in CPU cache hardware, leading to measurable degrees of inaccuracy.
Description
Keywords
CPU caching, memory layout