DBE: A Tool for Trace Driven Memory Simulation

In a trace driven simulation study, a simulation model is evaluated using a program trace as the input. A program trace is a list of the addresses of instructions executed and data referenced. Trace driven simulation is often used in evaluating the performance of processor caches or disk buffers, because it is difficult to design synthetic traces or input models that describe memory behavior of programs [1]. There are two basic ways of trace driven simulation: on-line and off-line. In the former, the simulator is run in parallel with the program producing the trace and the trace is not saved. In the latter, the trace is stored and the simulator is run separately. A stored trace can be used in several separate simulations. However, reproducing a trace can be faster than reading it from a disk. In both ways, traces are often compacted to make the size of a trace and its processing time feasible. There are a number of methods proposed f..