A Framework for Managing Multicore Resources

The computer industry is undergoing a momentous transformation. General-purpose computing is moving off of desktops and onto diverse device such as smart phones, digital entertainment centers, and data center servers. At the same time, high-performance semiconductor manufacturers are continuing the long-term trend of increasing integration and are now manufacturing multicore chips. It is our position that current resource management mechanisms and policies, developed in an earlier era, are inadequate for future multicore systems. Policies, mechanisms, and the interfaces between them will have to change to fit the multicore era. In this article, we present our vision of future multicore system architecture. We propose to use the Virtual Private Machine (VPM) abstraction to enrich the interface between hardware and software. The VPM abstraction allows software policies to explicitly manage microarchitecture resources in an intuitive manner. By enriching the interface between hardware and software, the envisioned system architecture facilitates the design of multicore systems that can efficiently satisfy the increasingly diverse requirements of future platforms. PRELIMINARY DRAFT – To Appear in IEEE Micro special issue on Interaction of Computer Architecture and Operating System in the Multicore Era, May-June 2008