A technique for monitoring run-time dynamics of an operating system and a microprocessor executing user applications

摘要

In this paper, we present a non-invasive and efficient technique for simulating applications complete with their operating system interaction. The technique involves booting and initiating an application on a hardware development system, capturing the entire state of the application and the microprocessor at a well defined point in execution and then simulating the application on microprocessor simulators. Extensive statistics generated from the simulators on run-time dynamics of the application, the operating system as well as the microprocessor enabled us to tune the operating system and the microprocessor architecture and implementation. The results also enabled us to optimize system level design choices by anticipating/predicting the performance of the target system. Lastly, the results were used to adjust and refocus the evolution of the architecture of both the operating system and the microprocessor.