A Multiprocessor Bus Design Model Validated by System Measurement

An accurate and efficient model of a commercial multiprocessor bus is developed. Four important characteristics of the bus design are modeled: asynchronous memory write operations; in-order delivery of responses to processor read requests; priority scheduling of memory responses; and upper bounds on the number of outstanding processor requests. A two-level hierarchical model employing both Markov chain and mean value analysis techniques for analyzing queueing networks is used. The model is shown to accurately predict measured system performance for two parallel program workloads that have different memory access characteristics. The results provide evidence that analytic queueing models can be extremely accurate in spite of simplifying assumptions required for model tractability. Model estimates are compared against detailed simulation of the bus to investigate in more detail the likely source of small model inaccuracies. The use of the analytical model for assessing system design tradeoffs is illustrated. >

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