InHouse-a user-oriented monitoring approach

We present a new approach for monitoring and visualization of parallel processing systems. Instead of measuring the system and presenting to the user a variety of performance figures and visualization displays afterwards, in this user oriented approach the events and features of interest may be selected before instrumentation and measurements. Different techniques for this a priori filtering of events are provided, ranging from a direct manipulative selection in a graphical, hierarchical representation of the program and the architecture, to a textual, rule based selection. Real Life Metaphors in visualization make this approach particularly suited for so called novice (i.e. non-expert) users, thus suggesting teaching as one of the major fields of application.