LWFG: A Cache-Aware Multi-core Real-Time Scheduling Algorithm

As the number of processing cores contained in modern processors continues to increase, cache hierarchies are becoming more complex. This added complexity has the effect of increasing the potential cost of any cache misses on such architectures. When cache misses become more costly, minimizing them becomes even more important, particularly in terms of scalability concerns. In this thesis, we consider the problem of cache-aware real-time scheduling on multiprocessor systems. One avenue for improving real-time performance on multi-core platforms is task partitioning. Partitioning schemes statically assign tasks to cores, eliminating task migrations and reducing system overheads. Unfortunately, no current partitioning schemes explicitly consider cache effects when partitioning tasks. We develop the LWFG (Largest Working set size First, Grouping) cache-aware partitioning algorithm, which seeks to schedule tasks which share memory with one another in such a way as to minimize the total number of cache misses. LWFG minimizes cache misses by partitioning tasks that share memory onto the same core and by distributing the system's sum working set size as evenly as possible across the available cores. We evaluate the LWFG partitioning algorithm against several other commonly-used partitioning heuristics on a modern 48-core platform running ChronOS Linux. Our evaluation shows that in some cases, the LWFG partitioning algorithm increases execution efficiency by as much as 15% (measured by instructions per cycle) and decreases mean maximum tardiness by up to 60%.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Science

Department dc:contributor.department

Computer Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Lindsay, Aaron Charles

Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair

• Kafura, Dennis G.
• Ravindran, Binoy

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Vullikanti, Anil Kumar S.

• Linux
• Real-Time
• Scheduling
• Multiprocessors
• Cache-aware
• Partitioning

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-06122012-134840

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/33541