Towards Collaborative Research and Education in Computer Architecture with the Archer System

Archer is a simulation environment and computing resource for research in the field of computer architecture. Archer facilitates the creation of an on-demand computing grid, the deployment of simulation tools on this grid and the batch scheduling of large-scale simulation jobs on this grid. These features enable the use of Archer for simulation-based research as well as dissemination of tools and results among multiple research groups. This paper overviews and reports our experience in the use of Archer for collaborative research and for education.