SICOSYS: an integrated framework for studying interconnection network performance in multiprocessor systems

An environment has been developed which is capable of determining the impact that a multiprocessor interconnection subsystem causes on real application execution time. A general-purpose interconnection network simulator, called SICOSYS, able to capture essential aspects of the low-level implementation, has been integrated into two execution driven simulators for multiprocessors: RSIM and SimOS. The enhancement of both tools allows the analysis of new proposals for the interconnection subsystem of a cc-NUMA machine, from the VLSI level up to the real application level. Any new proposal can be translated to a specific message router architecture and by using a low-level implementation tool, the parameter delays of a detailed router model to be used by SICOSYS can be obtained.