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Re: [ptp-dev] The State of the TAU Plugins
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Wyatt,
This sounds great. I have a couple of questions. How much of this is
TAU specific, and how much could be used as a generic framework for
performance tools? Would it be possible to split this into a core
plugin that exposes some extension points, and a TAU plugin that
implements the TAU-specific part? Also, can you provide any
suggestions on extension points that would make it easier for you to
use the launcher?
Thanks,
Greg
On Dec 12, 2006, at 4:18 PM, wspear wrote:
Greetings,
Here is a quick overview of the TAU plugins as they stand now and
their impending improvement.
As demonstrated at Supercomputing, the plugins have been almost
totally overhauled from the previously committed versions.
Instrumentation options have been moved from a workspace-wide
options panel to a run-configuration specific performance analysis
tab. Profile data is now collected in and displayable from a
database navigable within Eclipse. TAU's selective instrumentation
capabilities were given an interface within the Eclipse workspace.
Since Supercomputing there have been several bugfixes and
architectural changes. The TAU plugin's Launch Configuration
Delegate now essentially wraps the PTP's.
Presently the scheme for performance analysis launching is a basic
three part process. First there is a pre-execution phase (here TAU
(harmlessly) re-compiles the project with its compiler wrapper
scripts). Then comes the launching phase, which for the TAU plugin
consists of calling the PTP's launcher normally, but substituting
the TAU-instrumented executable. Finally, after the process
finishes running, the post-execution phase kicks in. Here TAU
collects and stores performance data output and cleans up any
unwanted build configurations. The generic scheme of 'things done
before execution', execution and 'things done after execution' is
likely to apply to most performance analysis tools, but it will be
difficult to tighten up the launch delegate's interface much beyond
that, given the diversity of performance analysis tools' usage
requirements. Similarly, the contents of the performance analysis
launch configuration tab and any workspace options are entirely
dependent on the options available to the tool in question.
Removing the TAU specific elements of the plugins would leave a
serviceable shell for integration of other performance analysis
tools plugins, but the plugin developers will have to do a lot of
work specific to the functionality of their system. Other issues,
such as support for multiple performance analysis plugins at once,
haven't received much attention yet. I suspect the single most
useful thing for the performance analysis plugin framework now
would be some how-to documentation with the TAU plugin as an example.
New features added since Supercomputing include a PAPI event
counter selection tool. When PAPI is available this allows you to
select PAPI counters from a checklist, which marks mutually
exclusive counters as you proceed. The selected counters are
automatically defined in the project's environment. The mechanism
for selecting TAU makefiles has also been improved. The list of
check boxes for specifying TAU features is now used to narrow down
a list of available makefiles, with unavailable makefile options
dynamically disabled.
Upcoming changes (hopefully within the next few days) include the
addition of help and usage information to the interface and
improved control of performance data output and storage.
Longer range goals include improvements to the build and launch
progress monitoring system, creation of a version of the TAU
launcher plugin (the selective instrumentation, PAPI and profile
view plugins are universal) for non-parallel programs (making two
versions of the TAU launcher plugin should help with developing the
general performance plugin framework), better support for the
standard make system, addition of more TAU compilation and runtime
options, automatic selective instrumentation calculated by analysis
of previous execution profiles and support for multi-run experiment
batch launching. Please let me know if there are any features or
fixes you would like to see.
I will try to submit a new version of the TAU plugins to bugzilla
before Christmas.
Happy Holidays,
Wyatt Spear
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