From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Keir Fraser Subject: Re: Perfctr-Xen framework for permonace analysis Date: Thu, 12 May 2011 21:09:23 +0100 Message-ID: References: <395284.39970.qm@web113610.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <395284.39970.qm@web113610.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com Errors-To: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com To: Ruslan Nikolaev , xen-devel@lists.xensource.com List-Id: xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org On 12/05/2011 20:36, "Ruslan Nikolaev" wrote: > Hi > > I want to make an announcement about new perfomance monitoring framework. > > Perfctr-Xen framework that enables per-thread performance analysis in Xen. > Current version is capable of properly virtualizing counters in both > paravirtualized and HVM modes. It is based on perfctr (which is a library and > kernel module for non-virtualized guests), ported to Xen, and extended to work > properly in virtualized environment. Both accumulative and interrupt modes > counting (profiling) are supported. > > The advantage of Perfctr-Xen is that it does not require specific HVM > extensions which are needed for vpmu driver, can work in paravirtualized mode, > and it also quite universal: works with many common tools such as PAPI, > HPCToolkit, TAU PerfExplorer. It supports proper per-domain and per-thread > virtualization. It is light-weight, supports wide range of CPUs, does not > require save-and-restore for accumulative mode of counting (it uses counter > offsetting), avoids expensive hypercalls and counter re-programming in certain > circumstances (when threads are counting the same type of events). In > addition, some techniques are employed to account for the overhead caused by > the framework itself. This makes measurements quite accurate. > > Perfctr-Xen consists of series of patches that need to be applied to Xen, > Linux, perfctr. There are available at: > http://people.cs.vt.edu/~rnikola/ > > The code is available under LGPL. It would be great to discuss if and how it > can be integrated into Xen. Could it reasonably replace the oprofile stuff we have already? I wouldn't want yet another perfctr subsystem/interface unless it supplants an existing one. We need a revolving door policy here I think. -- Keir > The publication regarding Perfctr-Xen is at: > http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1952687 > > Thanks, > Ruslan Nikolaev > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-devel mailing list > Xen-devel@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel