design issues. Specific aspects of cache memories tha t are investigated include: the cache fetch algorithm (demand versus prefetch), the placement and replacement algorithms, line size, store-through versus copy-back updating of main memory, cold-start versus warm-start miss ratios, mulhcache consistency, the effect of input /output through the cache, the behavior of split data/instruction caches, and cache size. Our discussion includes other aspects of memory system architecture, including translation lookaside buffers. Throughout the paper, we use as examples the implementation of the cache in the Amdahl 470V/6 and 470V/7, the IBM 3081, 3033, and 370/168, and the DEC VAX 11/780. An extensive bibliography is provided.

Cache Memories

Dynamic memory allocation has been a fundamental part of most computer systems since roughly 1960, and memory allocation is widely considered to be either a solved problem or an insoluble one. In this survey, we describe a variety of memory allocator designs and point out issues relevant to their design and evaluation. We then chronologically survey most of the literature on allocators between 1961 and 1995. (Scores of papers are discussed, in varying detail, and over 150 references are given.)

/pdf/dynamic-storage-allocation-a-survey-and-critical-review-2mi0efvca4.pdf

Dynamic Storage Allocation: A Survey and Critical Review

The authors propose models for both temporal and spatial locality of reference in streams of requests arriving at Web servers. They show that simple models based on document popularity alone are insufficient for capturing either temporal or spatial locality. Instead, they rely on an equivalent, but numerical, representation of a reference stream: a stack distance trace. They show that temporal locality can be characterized by the marginal distribution of the stack distance trace, and propose models for typical distributions and compare their cache performance to the traces. They also show that spatial locality in a reference stream can be characterized using the notion of self-similarity. Self-similarity describes long-range correlations in the data set, which is a property that previous researchers have found hard to incorporate into synthetic reference strings. They show that stack distance strings appear to be strongly self-similar, and provide measurements of the degree of self-similarity in the traces. Finally, they discuss methods for generating synthetic Web traces that exhibit the properties of temporal and spatial locality measured in the data.

/pdf/characterizing-reference-locality-in-the-www-58ngp0bb97.pdf

Characterizing reference locality in the WWW

dix A. Even if you don’t choose to memorize them this system aids in reference and retreival of important formulas. The book was compiled from notes developed during eight years of teaching a graduate course on the subject and was used as a text. Thus it has been student tested. Appendix F contains a number of problems, grouped to be used on a chapter by chapter basis The problems are designed to illustrate practical applications of the text material. The parts of this book of most interest and value to the EMC engineer will be the chapters on Thermal Noise, Antennas, Propagation and Transmission Lines, and  Reflection and Refraction. This is not  to downpade the chapters on Statistics and Its Applications, Signal Processing and Detection, and Some System Characteristics which also contain much potentially useful materials. Additional plus values for the book include a list of 40 references, a table of symbols used throughout the book, and a subject index. Some readers may find the condensed type and close line spacing hard to read. It was apparently set up by typewriter using an elite type face with single line spacing. When reduced down to a 6 by 9 5 inch size page it is too crowded for easy reading. In spite of this shortcoming your reviewer recommends this book as a worthwhile reference in this field of interest.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/5/31269/01455368.pdf

Signal analysis

Reliable performance evaluations require the use of representative workloads. This is no easy task since modern computer systems and their workloads are complex, with many interrelated attributes and complicated structures. Experts often use sophisticated mathematics to analyze and describe workload models, making these models difficult for practitioners to grasp. This book aims to close this gap by emphasizing the intuition and the reasoning behind the definitions and derivations related to the workload models. It provides numerous examples from real production systems, with hundreds of graphs. Using this book, readers will be able to analyze collected workload data and clean it if necessary, derive statistical models that include skewed marginal distributions and correlations, and consider the need for generative models and feedback from the system. The descriptive statistics techniques covered are also useful for other domains.

Workload Modeling for Computer Systems Performance Evaluation

This paper uses fractals to model the clustering of cache misses. The clustering of cache misses can be quantified by a single number analog to a fractional dimension, and we are intrigued by the possibility that this number can be used as a measure of software complexity. The essential intuition is that cache misses are a direct reflection of changes in locality of reference, and that complex software requires more frequent (and larger) changes in this locality than simple software. The cluster dimension provides a measure (and perhaps the basis for a model) of the intrinsic differences between workloads. In this paper, we focus on cache miss activity as a discriminate between interactive and batch environments.

Fractal nature of software-cache interaction

This paper describes an adaptation of standard Fourier analysis techniques to the study of software-cache interactions. The cache is viewed as a "black box" boolean signal generator, where "ones" correspond to cache misses and "zeros" correspond to cache hits. The spectrum of this time sequence is used to study the dynamic characteristics of complex systems and workloads with minimal a priori knowledge of their internal organization. Line spectra identify tight loops accessing regular data structures, while the overall spectral density reveals the general structure of instruction localities.

J. Voldman

Papers

Fractal nature of software-cache interaction

The software-cache connection