Program optimization

Sandia Laboratories has established a consulting service designed to improve the overall efficiency of Fortran production programs in use by the scientific community. Since this service was inaugurated in May, 1971, approximately 40 jobs have been reviewed for optimization with varying degrees of success. In several instances it was not possible to improve the operating efficiency of a given program. However, in most cases it has been possible to achieve worthwhile reductions in the use of critical machine resources (primary attention is directed at use of central processor time and allocation of central memory). Average reduction of CPU usage is approximately 30% with one recorded instance of a 97% reduction.This paper addresses the problems encountered in launching and promoting a program optimization service in an open shop environment among users with widely varying levels of programming to indicate the method used to isolate and correct the sections of code that preempt the vital computer resources.