Realistic CPU Workloads through Host Load Trace Playback

This paper introduces host load trace playback, a new technique for generating a background workload from a trace of the Unix load average that results in realistic and repeatable CPU contention behavior. Such workloads are invaluable for evaluating various forms of distributed middleware, including resource prediction systems and application-level schedulers. We describe the technique and then evaluate a tool, playload, that implements it. Playload faithfully reproduces workloads from traces on the four platforms on which we have evaluated it. Both playload and a large set of host load traces are publicly available from the web at the following URL: