Reconciling Time Predictability and Performance in Future Computing Systems

Abstract

MBTA studies the system’s timing in analysis scenarios, to determine upper bounds to the worst-case execution-time behavior that may occur at operation. MBTA’s challenge is to construct analysis-time scenarios that help compute WCET estimates that upper-bound operation-time behavior. This evidently requires ensuring that all factors with bearing on the execution conditions that the program may incur during operation are duly considered in the analysis. In fact, the factors that originate from low-level hardware resources are far more difficult to get at for the user than those that proceed from the software. This paper addresses the former challenge, with solutions that entail simple changes to hardware design and MBTA methods, which achieve quality results without sacrificing performance. On those grounds, we maintain that the adoption of the following design principles yields an effective application of MBTA to high-performance systems.