The Concept of Memory Stubs as a Specialization of Dynamic Performance Stubs to Simulate Memory Access Behavior

Dynamic performance stubs provide a framework for the simulation of the performance behavior of software modules and functions. Stubs can be used for a cost-benefit analysis of the gain from performance optimization and therefore, for a gain oriented performance improvement, and can be also be used to identify “hidden” bottlenecks and the most relevant candidates for optimization. This paper evaluates memory stubs in detail as a special subset of dynamic performance stubs to optimize memory bound modules or functions. It describes and validates the possibility of simulating the memory and data cache access behavior of software modules and functions. Therefore, a new foundation for gain oriented optimization of memory behavior has been achieved.