Performance Inspector Tools with Instruction Tracing and Per-Thread / Function Profiling

The open-source Performance InspectorTM project con-tains a suite of performance analysis tools for Linux R© which can be used to help identify performance prob-lems in JavaTM and C/C++ applications, as well as help determine how applications interact with the Linux ker-nel. One such tool is the Per-Thread Time Facility (PTT); it consists of a kernel module and user-space components which maintain thread statistics for time (cycles) or any of a number of predefined metrics. JProf is a Java/C/C++ profiler which uses PTT to produce re-ports with per-method/function metrics. Another tool is a Tracing Facility, which may be used for tracing instructions, thread dispatches, and sampling events. In this paper we present the details of the most com-monly used Performance Inspector tools, targeting the audience of developers interested in performance fine-tuning.