Looking Beyond Performance: Processors for Time Travel

  • Satish Narayanasamy | University of California

The processor industry is at an inflection point. In the past, performance was the driving force behind the processor industry. But in the coming many-core era, improving programmability and reliability of the system will be at least as important as improving raw performance. To meet this vision, I will present a processor feature called BugNet that assists programmers in understanding software failures.

Reproducing software failures is a significant challenge. The problem is severe especially for multi-threaded programs because the causes of failure can be non-deterministic in nature. BugNet continuously logs a program’s execution while sacrificing verylittle performance (~1%). If the program crashes, the developer can use the log to debug the failure by time traveling to a past instant in failed program’s execution time. I will also talk about two software tools built using the BugNet logging mechanism. One is a data race analysis tool, which is currently used at Microsoft. Another is a tool that enabled Intel to easily port their ASIM architectural simulator to Mac OSX, whichwas never attempted before because of the effort involved.

Speaker Details

Satish Narayanasamy is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at the University of California, San Diego. His research interests include computer architecture and systems support for software development and system reliability. He has received two IEEE Top Picks awards in recognition of his industry relevant contributions.

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