Wednesday, March 14, 2001
113 MIB at 12:00 PM
Kevin Scott
University of Virginia
Department of Computer Science
ABSTRACT
Software dynamic optimizers have received a great deal of attention recently in the compiler and computer architecture communities. This attention extends from the astonishing fact that carefully implemented software dynamic optimizers can improve the execution time of programs that have already been statically optimized. This finding suggests that there may be other aspects of program performance that can be improved by observing run-time behavior and dynamically altering the program or its environment based on those observations.
In this talk I will be discussing work-in-progress on Strata, a retargetable, layered execution platform. A layered execution platform supports the implementation of dynamic optimizers in addition to a variety of other non-performance-improving applications. I will talk at length about the design and implementation of Strata and show some of our preliminary results. To place Strata in context, I will also present an overview of the state-of-the-art in software dynamic optimization. Time permitting, I will discuss some of the potential applications for Strata, including reduction of application energy consumption, security and safety monitoring, simulation, and emulation.