DocumentCode :
296687
Title :
Monitoring data-structure evolution in distributed message-passing programs
Author :
Sarukkai, Sekhar R. ; Beers, Andrew
Author_Institution :
NASA Ames Res. Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA
Volume :
1
fYear :
1996
fDate :
3-6 Jan 1996
Firstpage :
310
Abstract :
Monitoring the evolution of data structures in parallel and distributed programs, is critical for debugging its semantics and performance. However, the current state-of-art in tracking and presenting data-structure information on parallel and distributed environments is cumbersome and does not scale. We present a methodology and tool that automatically tracks memory bindings (not the actual contents) of dynamic data-structures of message-passing C programs, and inter-processor data-structure movement, using PVM on distributed environments. With the help of a number of examples we show that in addition to determining the impact of memory allocation overheads on program performance, graphical views can help in debugging many memory access errors. Traditional debuggers in distributed environments rely on existing sequential debuggers on each machine and simply provide an interface for querying and controlling each processor´s debugging session. However, to quickly locate the processor and to explain reasons for the error, we resort to run-time checking and trace based visualizations of memory access behavior across all processors. In an effort to reduce trace file size, only updates of pointer values and memory management functions are captured
Keywords :
data structures; data visualisation; message passing; parallel programming; program debugging; program diagnostics; software performance evaluation; storage allocation; C; PVM; data structure evolution monitoring; debugging; distributed message-passing programs; graphical views; memory access errors; memory allocation; memory bindings; memory management; parallel programs; performance; pointer values; querying; run-time checking; trace based visualizations; trace file size; Art; Computer science; Computerized monitoring; Context; Data structures; Debugging; NASA; Runtime; Visualization; Workstations;
fLanguage :
English
Publisher :
ieee
Conference_Titel :
System Sciences, 1996., Proceedings of the Twenty-Ninth Hawaii International Conference on ,
Conference_Location :
Wailea, HI
Print_ISBN :
0-8186-7324-9
Type :
conf
DOI :
10.1109/HICSS.1996.495476
Filename :
495476
Link To Document :
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