Trap-driven simulation with Tapeworm II

Abstract

Tapeworm II is a software-based simulation tool that evaluates the cache and TLB performance of multiple-task and operating system intensive workloads. Tapeworm resides in an OS kernel and causes a host machine's hardware to drive simulations with kernel traps instead of with address traces, as is conventionally done. This allows Tapeworm to quickly and accurately capture complete memory referencing behavior with a limited degradation in overall system performance. This paper compares trap-driven simulation, as implemented in Tapeworm, with the more common technique of trace-driven memory simulation with respect to speed, accuracy, portability and flexibility.