International Business Machines Corporation

Daniel V Rosa

Donald W Schmidt

Christian Jacobi

Jonathan D Bradbury

Anthony Saporito

Bruce C Giamei

Jane Helen Bartik

Chung-Lung K Shum

Gary M King

Nicholas R Jones

Ansu A Abraham

Qi Liang

Gui Yu Jiang

Bernard R Pierce

Steven Bruce Jones

Kevin McKenzie

Aaron Kippins

Nicholas C Matasakis

Bruce Conrad Giamei

Donald William Schmidt

Processing of a storage operand request identified as restrained is selectively, temporarily suppressed. The processing includes identifying a storage operand request as restrained, where the identifying includes obtaining, by a processing unit, an access intent instruction indicating an access intent associated with an operand of a next sequential instruction. The access intent indicates usage of the storage operand request is restrained. Further, the method includes determining whether a storage operand request is to a common storage location shared by multiple processing units of a computing environment and is identified restrained, and based on determining that the storage operand request is restrained, then temporarily suppressing requesting access to the common storage location pursuant to the storage operand request.

Temporarily suppressing processing of a restrained storage operand request

Aspects of the invention include methods, systems and computer program products for identifying interaction software defects. Aspects include singly executing a first testcase at a normal processing speed and singly executing a second testcase at the normal processing speed. Aspects also include simultaneously executing the first testcase at a first processing speed and a second testcase at a second processing speed. Based on determining the single and simultaneous testcase results do not match, aspects further include creating an error notification.

Identifying software interaction defects using differential speed processors

A source code defining record structure of data is received. The source code includes data tags which provide information for processing to be performed on the data. Data tagging metadata is generated based on the source code, and the data tagging metadata includes record structure information and the data tags. And data is processed according to the data tagging metadata.

Data processing with tags

A computer-implemented method for proactive change verification is provided. Aspects include analyzing runtime execution characteristics from a plurality of base activity metrics and a plurality of experimental activity metrics and creating a plurality of activity pairs wherein each activity pair comprises a base activity metric and its corresponding experimental activity metric. Aspects also include identifying significant activity pairs from the plurality of activity pairs wherein the experimental activity significantly deviates from its corresponding base activity and classifying significant activity pairs by deviation type. Aspects further include sorting activity pairs by their impact and removing activity pairs that have an impact of less than a threshold amount, wherein the threshold amount is based on the deviation type. Aspects also include correlating interacting impactful activity pairs temporally and prioritizing impactful activity pairs using experimental activity deviations and displaying the impactful activity pairs.

Proactive change verification

A computer-implemented method for diagnosing workload performance problems in computer servers includes measuring resource metrics. The method further includes aggregating resource metrics for each consumed resource, and aggregating resource and non-resource activity metrics for each consumer. The method further includes generating condensed diagnostic data, on a synchronized, regular interval with one or more most significant consumed resource names and corresponding consumed resource metrics. Generating the condensed diagnostic data includes grouping consumers into buckets based on bucket and consumer attributes, aggregating resource and non-resource consumer activity metrics across all consumers in each bucket, and including one or more worst offending consumer names with corresponding resource and non-resource consumer activity metrics in each bucket. The condensed diagnostic data with the most significant consumed resources and bucket contents is recorded. Diagnostic data can be generated in a human consumable form or in a machine consumable form for using machine learning.

Establishing consumed resource to consumer relationships in computer servers using micro-trend technology

Processing of a storage operand request identified as restrained is selectively, temporarily suppressed. The processing includes determining whether a storage operand request to a common storage location shared by multiple processing units of a computing environment is restrained, and based on determining that the storage operand request is restrained, then temporarily suppressing requesting access to the common storage location pursuant to the storage operand request. The processing unit performing the processing may proceed with processing of the restrained storage operand request, without performing the suppressing, where the processing can be accomplished using cache private to the processing unit. Otherwise the suppressing may continue until an instruction, or operation of an instruction, associated with the storage operand request is next to complete.

A computer-implemented method for diagnosing workload performance problems in computer servers includes measuring activity metrics. The method further includes aggregating activity metrics for each user. The method further includes generating condensed diagnostic data for identifying workload performance problems on a synchronized, regular interval. Generating the diagnostic data includes grouping users into buckets based on bucket and user attributes. Generating the diagnostic data includes aggregating activity metrics across all users in each bucket. Generating the diagnostic data includes including one or more most significant users and corresponding activity metrics for each activity in each bucket, and recording bucket contents. Diagnostic data can be generated in a human consumable form for human analysis or in a machine consumable form for machine analysis through machine learning.

Diagnosing workload performance problems in computer servers

A computer-implemented method for dynamic workload bucket reassignment in a system processor includes grouping a plurality of like workloads together via a common workload attribute. The processor calculates an aggregate use of a resource across all of the workloads, and creates a finite number of buckets. The processor then assigns a target resource use for each of the finite number of buckets, and assigns workloads with a same workload attribute value to a bucket of the finite number of buckets. The workload attribute values are distributed across a plurality of the finite number of buckets such that each bucket has a unique nonintersecting range and an aggregate workload resource use in each bucket near a bucket target resource use.

Dynamic workload bucket reassignment

A computing environment facility is provided to extend a hold of a cache line in private (or local) cache exclusively after processing a storage operand request. The facility includes determining whether a storage operand request to a storage location shared by multiple processing units of the computing environment is designated hold. In addition, a determination is made whether a state of the corresponding cache line in private cache used for processing the storage operand request is owned exclusively. Based on determining that the storage operand request is designated hold, and that the state of the corresponding cache line in private cache used for processing the storage operand request is owned exclusively, continuing to hold the corresponding cache line in the private cache exclusively after completing processing of the storage operand request. The continuing to hold may include initiating a counter to facilitate the continuing hold for a desired, set interval.

Facility for extending exclusive hold of a cache line in private cache

A system and method for implementing a servicing instruction for a plurality of counters that includes determining a counter set based on the servicing instruction, whether access is authorized to the counter set, and a block of storage in a memory based on the service instruction. In response to the determining that the access is authorized, the system and method extracts the plurality of counters within the counter set in response to the determining that the access is authorized and storing the plurality of counters in the block of storage.

Servicing multiple counters based on a single access check

A facility is provided for collecting time-slice-instrumentation information during processing unit execution. The facility counts, at least in part, occurrence of a specified processing unit event during a time-slice of processing unit execution. The counted events occurring during a first interval of execution and a second interval of execution of the time-slice are retained. The first interval of execution is earlier in the time-slice than the second interval of execution, and the counted events facilitate adjusting performance of the processing unit. In an embodiment, the time-slice is a contiguous period of time of processing unit execution, and the specified processing unit event includes a cache event. The processing unit may interleave processing of multiple different units of work across multiple contiguous time-slices, and during a single time-slice, a single unit of work of the multiple different units of work is processed by the processing unit.

Time-slice-instrumentation facility

Embodiments relate tracking utilization in a multithreading (MT) computer system. According to one aspect, a computer system includes a configuration with a core configured to operate in a MT that supports multiple threads on shared resources of the core. The core is configured to perform a method that includes resetting a plurality of utilization counters. The utilization counters include a plurality of sets of counters. During each clock cycle on the core, a set of counters is selected from the plurality of sets of counters. The selecting is based on a number of currently active threads on the core. In addition, during each clock cycle a counter in the selected set of counters is incremented based on an aggregation of one or more execution events at the multiple threads of the core. Values of the utilization counters are provided to a software program.

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Highland, NY, United States of America

Daniel V Rosa