Mtool: an integrated system for performance debugging shared memory multiprocessor applications

The authors describe Mtool, a software tool for analyzing performance losses in shared memory parallel programs. Mtool augments a program with low overhead instrumentation which perturbs the program´s execution as little as possible while generating enough information to isolate memory and synchronization bottlenecks. After running the instrumented version of the parallel program, the programmer can use Mtool´s window-based user interface to view compute time, memory, and synchronization objects. The authors describe Mtool´s low overhead instrumentation methods, memory bottleneck detection technique, and attention focusing mechanisms, contrast Mtool with other approaches, and offer a case study to demonstrate its effectiveness