An automatic trace based performance evaluation model building for parallel distributed systems

Performance models can be built at early stages of software development cycle to aid software designers to assess design alternatives and identify fundamental design pitfalls before the implementation phase starts. These models are flexible for varying operational conditions and design alternatives; however, their creation is not trivial and requires considerable efforts. This paper addresses this problem by introducing automation in process of Layered Queuing Network (LQN) performance model creation for traces of events generated from instrumented software programs in the nodes of a distributed parallel software application. The event-traces are created based on a new timestamp format, which is independent of physical time and uses extremely low count elements. A set of post-mortem methodologies have been introduced to identify the interactions between the service nodes of the parallel distributed software application and determine their workload activities, while supporting concurrent executions in the nodes. It can capture Forward, Asynchronous, Synchronous and loops of Asynchronous or Forward interactions. The final result is a framework of methodologies, specifications and tools which is appropriate for model-based performance evaluation parallel distributed software applications