Detection of weak unstable predicates in distributed programs

This paper discusses detection of global predicates in a distributed program. Earlier algorithms for detection of global predicates proposed by Chandy and Lamport (1985) work only for stable predicates. A predicate is stable if it does not turn false once it becomes true. Our algorithms detect even unstable predicates, without excessive overhead. In the past, such predicates have been regarded as too difficult to detect. The predicates are specified by using a logic described formally in this paper. We discuss detection of weak conjunctive predicates that are formed by conjunction of predicates local to processes in the system. Our detection methods will detect whether such a predicate is true for any interleaving of events in the system, regardless of whether the predicate is stable. Also, any predicate that can be reduced to a set of weak conjunctive predicates is detectable. This class of predicates captures many global predicates that are of interest to a programmer. The message complexity of our algorithm is bounded by the number of messages used by the program. The main applications of our results are in debugging and testing of distributed programs. Our algorithms have been incorporated in a distributed debugger that runs on a network of Sun workstations in UNIX     

IPS-2: the second generation of a parallel program measurementsystem

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     

A Local Network Based on the UNIX Operating System

The design and implementation of a local network operating ystem based on the UNIX¹operating system is described. UNIX has been extended to allow existing programs to access remote resources with no source program changes. Programs may access remote files, have a remote working directory, execute remote programs, and communicate with remote processes using the standard UNIX interprocess communication mechanism (pipe's). An efficient message-oriented interprocess communication mechanism and asynchronous I/O were added to the system to support the development of distributed applications and to make it easier to connect the local network to packet-switched networks.     

Analysis of real-time rule-based systems with behavioral constraintassertions specified in Estella

Rule-based expert systems are increasingly used to monitor and control the operations of complex real-time systems which require intensive knowledge-decision processing and human expertise. These embedded AI systems must respond to events in the rapidly changing external environment so that the results of the expert system's computation in each monitor-respond cycle are valid in safely operating the real-time system. Determining how fast an expert system can respond under all possible situations is a difficult problem. We have developed an efficient analysis methodology for a large class of rule-based EQL programs to determine whether a program in this class has bounded response time. In particular, we have identified several sets of primitive behavioral constraint assertions: an EQL program which satisfies all constraints in one of these sets of assertions is guaranteed to have bounded response time. Here, we enhance the applicability of our analysis technique by introducing a facility with which the rule-based programmer can specify application-specific knowledge that is too difficult to be mechanically detected in the new language Estella in order to determine the performance of an even wider range of programs. We also describe efficient algorithms for implementing the analysis tools     

UNIX环境下的多进程编程

由于UNIX系统是分时多用户系统,实质上应该说CPU按时间片分配给各个进程使用,每个进程都有自己的运行环境以使得在CPU做进程切换时不会"忘记"该进程已计算了一半的"半成品",进程的切换都是一次中断处理过程,UNIX系统本身是用C语言编写的多进程程序,多进程编程是UNIX的特点,我们尽可以使用系统提供的多进程的特点,让几个程序并行执行,提高系统的并行处理能力,简单而又高效地完成相应任务。本文主要介绍在UNIX系统下多进程编程的有关系统调用和编程技巧。     

面向Java的分布式程序测试系统

由于程序的分布运行,测试分布式程序必须同时考虑并发特性和运行环境.介绍了一个面向Java语言的分布式程序测试系统JDPT(Java-oriented distributed program testing system).JDPT基于运行环境定义事件,通过事件序列记录分布式程序的运行过程,并定义事件约束检测可行事件序列集的有效性.通过该技术,JDPT可以有效地判断程序在运行环境中并发执行的正确性,适用于跨平台的Java程序测试.     

The UNIX™ programming environment

The UNIX

1 UNIX is a trademark of Bell Laboratories.

operating system provides an especially congenial programming environment, in which it is not only possible, but actually natural, to write programs quickly and well. Several characteristics of the UNIX system contribute to this desirable state of affairs. Files have no type or internal structure, so data produced by one program can be used by another without impediment. The basic system interface for input and output provides homogeneous treatment of files, I/O devices and programs, so programs need not care where their data comes from or goes to. The command interpreter makes it convenient to connect programs, by arranging for all data communication. Complex procedures are created not by writing large programs from scratch, but by interconnecting relatively small components. These programs are small and concentrate on single functions, and therefore are easy to build, understand, describe, and maintain. They form a high level toolkit whose existence causes programmers to view their work as the use and creation of tools, a viewpoint that encourages growth in place of reinvention. Tools interact in a limited number of ways, but can be used in many different combinations. Thus, an addition to the toolkit tends to improve the programming power of the user faster than it increases the complexity of interconnection and maintenance. Finally, tools are connected at a very high level by a powerful command language interpreter. The error-prone and expensive process of program writing can often be avoided in favor of program-using. In this paper we will present a variety of examples to illustrate this methodology, focusing on those aspects of the system and supporting software which make it possible.     

An object oriented user interface for analysis of biological data

In a previous paper we described a self-documented file and a collection of general purpose programs or tools that facilitates the management and analysis of biological data. The tools can be specified in a pipeline to accomplish a specific analysis task. However, we found that it was difficult for investigators to learn the UNIX command language for specifying pipelines, specify selection tasks through a command language, and visualize the data as they were transformed and rearranged. To alleviate these problems we developed an object-oriented user interface for the pipeline programs. The system consists of four major programs for visualization: Vedit, Vgraf, Vscan, and V spread. Vedit is a simple text editor, Vgraf is a flexible graphics program, Vscan facilitates scanning graphically through large files, and Vspread provides spreadsheet-like capabilities. To demonstrate how the visualization programs are used together to accomplish the needed analysis we describe two case studies and then discuss how well the system accomplished the goals of visualization, short learning curve, and user adaptability.     

Performance measurement for parallel and distributed programs: astructured and automatic approach

Novel approaches are presented for designing performance measurement systems for parallel and distributed programs. The first approach involves unifying performance information into a single, regular structure that reflects the structure of programs under measurement. The authors define a hierarchical model for the execution of parallel and distributed programs as a framework for the performance measurement. A complete different levels of detail in the hierarchy. The second approach is based on the development of automatic guidance techniques that can direct users to the location of performance problems in the program. Guidance information from such techniques supplies facts about problems in the program and provides possible answers for the further improvement of program efficiency. A performance measurement system, called IPS, has been developed as a prototype of the authors' model and design. Some of the test results from IPS are also discussed     

Application-dependent dynamic monitoring of distributed andparallel systems

Achieving high performance for parallel or distributed programs often requires substantial amounts of information about the programs themselves, about the systems on which they are executing, and about specific program runs. The monitoring system that collects, analyzes, and makes application-dependent monitoring information available to the programmer and to the executing program is presented. The system may be used for off-line program analysis, for on-line debugging, and for making on-line, dynamic changes to parallel or distributed programs to enhance their performance. The authors use a high-level, uniform data model for the representation of program information and monitoring data. They show how this model may be used for the specification of program views and attributes for monitoring, and demonstrate how such specifications can be translated into efficient, program-specific monitoring code that uses alternative mechanisms for the distributed analysis and collection to be performed for the specified views. The model's utility has been demonstrated on a wide variety of parallel machines     

面向国产平台的程序并发性能分析技术

随着国产处理器和国产操作系统的逐步推广应用,越来越多的开发人员在国产平台下开发多线程程序.目前国产平台普遍采用的Qt Creator工具中缺乏可视化的并发性能分析工具,使得优化由于多线程同步/互斥和资源竞争带来的性能问题变得特别困难.设计一种Qt Creator下的并发性能分析方案,通过实时监控程序并发事件,采集程序运行过程中的并发性能数据,分析程序并发性能瓶颈和死锁原因,并以插件形式进行多视图数据显示.通过实验表明,该并发性能分析方案可以方便、快捷地辅助用户开发多线程并发程序,提高软件开发效率.     

An environment for prototyping distributed applications

Designing a distributed application is an extremely complex task. Proper facilities for prototyping distributed applications can be useful in evaluating a design, and also in understanding the effect of different parameters on the performance of an application. We describe a language for prototyping distributed applications, that supports different communication primitives with specified delay, and provides primitives to aid debugging and evaluation. Our environment for executing distributed programs supports heterogeneous computation in which processes can execute on different hardware. Different source languages can be used for coding different modules of the processes. The system has a centralized control and monitoring facility which is based on the Suntools window system.     

基于HLA的分布式仿真框架自动生成技术

针对基于HLA仿真应用系统开发中存在的计算模型程序与RTI服务程序的耦合问题,研究了基于共享内存和中断回调技术的解耦方法,进一步采用HLA仿真适配器对RTI服务程序进行封装,从而实现了计算模型程序与RTI底层服务程序的有效隔离。为提高仿真应用程序开发效率,分析了联邦成员中RTI服务程序功能需求,研究实现了仿真适配器自动生成软件。该软件可快速生成基于HLA的联邦成员适配器代码和执行程序,从而构建仿真应用系统分布式仿真框架。     

基于基本并行进程的异步通信程序的验证方法

异步通讯程序是进程间通过异步消息通讯实现非阻塞并发的程序. 当前异步通讯程序的程序验证问题通常将其归约至向量加法系统及其扩展模型,因而复杂度很高,并缺乏高效工具. 基本并行进程作为向量加法系统的一个子类,其可达性的验证问题为NP完备.首先,本文改进了Osualdo等提出的为异步通讯程序建模的Actor通讯系统, 将其归约至基本并行进程. 然后,实现了基本并行进程的模型检测工具RABLE,实验结果表明,验证方法在异步通讯程序的一系列程序验证问题上具有比已有工具更高效的结果.     

A performance analysis exemplar: Parallel ray tracing

Among the many techniques in computer graphics, ray tracing is prized because it can render realistic images, albeit at great computational expense. Ray tracing's large computation requirements, coupled with its inherently parallel nature, make ray tracing algorithms attractive candidates for parallel implementation. In this paper we illustrate the utility and the importance of a suite of performance analysis tools when exploring the performance of several approaches to ray tracing on a distributed memory parallel system. These ray tracing algorithm variations introduce parallelism based on both ray and object partitions. Traditional timing analysis can quantify the performance effects of different algorithm choices (i.e. when an algorithm is best matched to a given problem), but it cannot identify the causes of these performance differences. We argue, by example, that a performance instrumentation system is needed that can trace the execution of distributed memory parallel programs by recording the occurrence of parallel program events. The resulting event traces can be used to compile summary stapistics that provide a global view of program performance. In addition, visualization tools permit the graphic display of event traces. Visual presentation of performance data is particularly useful, indeed, necessary for large-scale, parallel computations; assimilating the enormous volume of performance data mandates visual display.     

Description for a tool specifying and prototyping concurrentprograms

A specification language is introduced, able to define the behavior of concurrent programs. The language is particularly devoted to describing distributed applications, mainly with respect to scheduling problems. For this purpose, the language allows visibility of the past history of a computation and such history may be explicitly used to derive the choices on the future behavior of the computation itself and to define the values exchanged at each communication. A behavior is a partial order on events (communications) accomplished by processes, while the values of the communications are specified by a functional language. The most noticeable characteristic of specifications written in this language is the capability to be easily translated into executable concurrent programs (written into a CSP-like concurrent language), so obtaining an early prototype for these programs. An algorithm is described to accomplish the translation. An environment is provided to support static semantics checks on specifications, while dynamic testing and debugging are accomplished using interactive tools of the concurrent language environment     

The newcastle connection or UNIXes of the world unite!

In this paper we describe a software subsystem that can be added to each of a set of physically interconnected UNIX or UNIX look-alike systems, so as to construct a distributed system which is functionally indistinguishable at both the user and the program level from a conventional single-processor UNIX system. The techniques used are applicable to a variety and multiplicity of both local and wide area networks, and enable all issues of inter-processor communication, network protocols, etc., to be hidden. A brief account is given of experience with such a distributed system, which is currently operational on a set of PDPlls connected by a Cambridge Ring. The final sections compare our scheme to various precursor schemes and discuss its potential relevance to other operating systems.     

Communication and Synchronization Primitives for Distributed Programs

A distributed program is a collection of several processes which execute concurrently, possibly in different nodes of a distributed system, and which cooperate with each other to realize a common goal. In this paper, we present a design of communication and synchronization primitives for distributed programs. The primitives are designed such that they can be provided by a kernel of a distributed operating system. An important feature of the design is that the configuration of a process, i.e., identities of processes with which the process communicates, is specified separately from the computation performed by the process. This permits easy configuration and reconfiguration of processes. We identify different kinds of communication failures, and provide distinct mechanisms for handling them. The communication primitives are not atomic actions. To enable the construction of atomic actions, two new program components, atomic agent and manager are introduced. These are devoid of policy decisions regarding concurrency control and atomic commitment. We introduce the notion of conflicts relation using which a designer can construct either an optimistic or a pessimistic concurrency control scheme. The design also incorporates primitives for constructing nested atomic actions.     

A Suite of Tools for Debugging Distributed Autonomous Systems

This paper describes a set of tools that enables developers to log and analyze the run-time behavior of distributed control systems. A feature of the tools is that they can be applied to distributed systems. The logging tools enable developers to instrument C or C++ programs so that data indicating state changes can be logged automatically in a variety of formats. In particular, run-time data from distributed systems can be synchronized into a single relational database. Tools are also provided for visualizing the logged data. Analysis to verify correct program behavior is done using a new interval logic that is described in this paper. The logic enables system engineers to express temporal specifications for the autonomous control program that are then checked against the logged data. The data logging, visualization, and interval logic analysis tools are all fully implemented. Results are given from a NASA distributed autonomous control system application.