PET, a software monitoring toolkit for performance analysis of parallel embedded applications
Since the late 1980s a great deal of research has been dedicated to the development of software monitoring and visualization toolkits for parallel systems. These toolkits have traditionally been oriented to measuring and analyzing parallel scientific applications. However, nowadays, other types of parallel applications, using signal-processing or image-processing techniques, are becoming increasingly importance in the field of embedded computing. Such applications are executed on special parallel computers, normally known as embedded multiprocessors, and they exhibit structural and behavioral characteristics very different from scientific applications. Because of this, monitoring tools with specific characteristics are required for measuring and analyzing parallel embedded applications. In this paper we present performance execution tracer (PET), a monitoring and visualization toolkit specifically developed to measure and analyze this type of application. Special emphasis is placed on explaining how PET deals with the particular characteristics of these applications. In addition, in order to demonstrate the capabilities of PET, the measurement and analysis of a real application using this tool are described.
parallel embedded applications embedded multiprocessors performance measurement performance visualization software monitoring tools