Benchmark synthesis using workload statistics
View Patent ↗A synthetic benchmark for a computer program and a method and computer program product for creating a synthetic benchmark for a computer program. The synthetic benchmark is created using statistical information that is collected about an executing program, and some hints about the machine on which the benchmark will be run. When executed, the synthetic benchmark exhibits behavior similar to the computer program to permit computer performance to be accurately measured.
1. A computer program product in a recordable-type computer readable medium for creating a synthetic benchmark for a computer program, comprising:
instructions for executing the computer program;
instructions for recording selected statistical characteristics for each basic block of the executing computer program, wherein the selected statistical characteristics for each basic block comprise:
mix distribution statistics regarding a fraction of operations that are an Add instruction type, a Load instruction type and a Store instruction type;
statistics regarding basic block size mean and standard deviation; and
statistics regarding a frequency distribution of register dependencies for each possible input of each of the instruction types;
instructions for using the recorded statistical characteristics to create a sequence of synthetic basic blocks, wherein the instructions for using the recorded statistical characteristics to create a sequence of synthetic basic blocks comprises:
instructions for calculating a size for each synthetic basic block from a normal distribution with a mean and standard deviation equal to the statistics regarding basic block size mean and standard deviation, and for each instruction in each synthetic block,
picking instruction dependencies using the frequency distribution of register dependencies; and
fixing each selected instruction dependency to provide a correct dependency;
instructions for receiving hints from a user regarding a machine on which the benchmark is to be run to assist in creating the synthetic benchmarks;
instructions for creating a synthetic benchmark using the sequence of synthetic basic blocks and the received hints from a user, wherein the synthetic benchmark is representative of the computer program with respect to the selected statistical characteristics and is in a format that can be executed on a computer; and
instructions for outputting the created synthetic benchmark.
2. The computer program product according to claim 1 , wherein the instructions for outputting comprises instructions for outputting a synthetic benchmark in the form of data and machine instructions to a file in a format that can be executed on a computer.