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Existing PLEX Code, and its Suitability for Parallel Execution - A Case Study
Publication Type:
Report - MRTC
ISRN:
MDH-MRTC-228/2008-1-SE
Abstract
Some computer systems have been designed under the assumption that activities in the
system are executed non-preemptively. Exclusive access to any shared data in such a system
is automatically guaranteed as long as the system is executed on a single-processor architecture.
However, if the activities are executed on a multiprocessor, exclusive access to the
data must be guaranteed when memory conflicts are possible. An analysis of the potential
memory conflicts can be used to estimate the possibility for parallel execution.
Central parts of the AXE telephone exchange system from Ericsson is programmed in
the language PLEX. The current software is executed on a single-processor architecture,
and assumes non-preemptive execution.
In this paper, we investigate some existing PLEX code with respect to the number of
possible shared-memory conflicts that could arise if the existing code, without modifications,
would be executed on a parallel architecture.
Our results show that only by examining the data that actually can be shared, we derive
a safe upper bound on the number of conflicts to figures between 33-91% for the observed
programs (in comparison with the assumed 100%). A more fine-grained analysis, based on
certain run-time properties, can decrease the numbers to figures between 0-75%.
Bibtex
@techreport{Lindhult1249,
author = {Johan Lindhult},
title = {Existing PLEX Code, and its Suitability for Parallel Execution - A Case Study},
number = {ISSN 1404-3041 ISRN MDH-MRTC-228/2008-1-SE},
month = {April},
year = {2008},
url = {http://www.es.mdu.se/publications/1249-}
}