Performance Stability and Prediction

This paper presents experimental data from our research on stability of parallel programs and cross-machine performance prediction on multicomputers. We characterize program behavior by an execution graph, obtained from running an instrumented version of the program. We assess program stability using time perturbations, and analyze the resulting execution graphs with an approximation of a graph comparison metric based on subgraph isomorphism. On programs with stable behavior, we predict performance across diierent systems by transforming the observed execution trace; this trace transformation adjusts timestamps of events according to the architectural parameters of the systems under study, assuming the same partial event order on both systems. This technique allows us to predict performance also for future, hypothetical systems. We provide results showing that the technique is viable.