IPS-2: the second generation of a parallel program measurement system

IPS, a performance measurement system for parallel and distributed programs, is currently running on its second implementation. IPS´s model of parallel programs uses knowledge about the semantics of a program´s structure to provide two important features. First, IPS provides a large amount of performance data about the execution of a parallel program, and this information is organized so that access to it is easy and intuitive. Secondly, IPS provides performance analysis techniques that help to guide the programmer automatically to the location of program bottlenecks. The first implementation of IPS was a testbed for the basic design concepts, providing experience with a hierarchical program and measurement model, interactive program analysis, and automatic guidance techniques. It was built on the Charlotte distributed operating system. The second implementation, IPS-2, extends the basic system with new instrumentation techniques, an interactive and graphical user interface, and new automatic guidance analysis techniques. This implementation runs on 4.3BSD UNIX systems, on the VAX, DECstation, Sun 4, and Sequent Symmetry multiprocessor