Simulating Java Commercial Throughput Workload: A Case Study

Commercial throughput workloads are very important and significantly different from SPECcpu benchmarks. We present our study on the simulation methodology for one such workload, SPECjbb2000. Our result shows that the CPI correlates well with transaction throughput, thus can be used as a valid performance metric in simulation. We investigate the applicability of SimPoint technique to SPECjbb2000. It is shown that cluster analysis of BBV can successfully identify phases. With only a small number of clusters we can reap most of the benefits of such analysis. It is observed that a stationary main phase dominates the execution of the benchmark. Employing the Standardized Time Series technique in discrete event simulation theory, we propose a method to accurately measure the CPI for the main phase with only one checkpoint. The error in the result can be quantified with a confidence interval. Moreover, the simulation automatically stops when the user’s accuracy requirement is met.