Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Michael Andrew Brian Parkes

Barry M Nolte

Douglas S Boa

An invention for reassigning data elements of an application to cache lines to decrease the occurrence of cache line faults is described. First, an application is executed and used in a typically manner. While the application is running, data is collected concerning the loading and storing of data elements. This collection process creates a massive volume of data that is then processed to determine correlations between the loading and storing pairs of elements within each of the application's data structures. These correlations provide a mechanism for weighing the probability of pairs of intra-structure data elements being accessed in sequence, which is best accomplished when the data elements are within a single cache line. A set of simultaneous equations describe the probabilities using the data recording the correlations. These equations are then solved using commonly known linear programming techniques to derive a suggested ordering of data structures. An interactive editor is then used to reorder these data elements in the derived preferred order as authorized by the programmer.

Optimized allocation of data elements among cache lines

An invention for optimizing the logging of data elements to a hardware device is described. Using this invention, a large stream of data can be written to a hardware device at a rate that approaches the limits of the physical characteristics of the hardware device. To achieve this efficiency, the performance of a logging operation is divided between a data source and a data logging software processes which operate in different threads or processes. The data source collects pieces of data to be written to the hardware device into a larger buffer retrieved from a pool of empty buffers. When a buffer becomes full, the buffer is placed at the end of a full buffer queue. The data logger, operating asynchronously, retrieves a full buffer from the queue and then writes the data to the hardware. In this fashion, the hardware data logging device is able to perform optimally while creating or expanding the file.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Michael Andrew Brian Parkes