SimFlex: a fast, accurate, flexible full-system simulation framework for performance evaluation of server architecture

ABSTRACT

The new focus on commercial workloads in simulation studies of server systems has caused a drastic increase in the complexity and decrease in the speed of simulation tools. The complexity of a large-scale full-system model makes development of a monolithic simulation tool a prohibitively difficult task. Furthermore, detailed full-system models simulate so slowly that experimental results must be based on simulations of only fractions of a second of execution of the modelled system.This paper presents SIMFLEX, a simulation framework which uses component-based design and rigorous statistical sampling to enable development of complex models and ensure representative measurement results with fast simulation turnaround. The novelty of SIMFLEX lies in its combination of a unique, compile-time approach to component interconnection and a methodology for obtaining accurate results from sampled simulations on a platform capable of evaluating unmodified commercial workloads.

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