Aural signatures of parallel programs

摘要

The run-time behavior of a program is defined by many parameters, thus it is frequently necessary for a programmer to consider the program's behavior from a number of different angles. This paper discusses the properties of parallel program behavior that, theoretically, can be mapped to sound, such that the natural properties of sound portray significant information about the program. Thus, when an aural display is combined with a graphical display, it will be possible for a user to gain more (or quicker) insight about a program's behavior than by using a graphical display alone. In support of this claim, this paper demonstrates the use of sound as an enhancement to graphical displays for a number of parallel programs. In particular the auralizations allow the listener to detect patterns within parallel program communication behavior and processor utilization distributions. A study of the uniqueness of these patterns, or signatures, is also discussed.