International Business Machines Corporation

Mysore Sathyanarayana Srinivas

Andrew Dunshea

Diane Garza Flemming

Jos Manuel Accapadi

William A Maron

Dirk Michel

Ram Raghavan

Bret Ronald Olszewski

Robert H Bell, Jr

Vaijayanthimala K Anand

David Blair Whitworth

Hong Lam Hua

Octavian Florin Herescu

Wen-Tzer Thomas Chen, Jr

Satya Prakash Sharma

Larry Bert Brenner

Li Li

Mathew Accapadi

Basu Vaidyanathan

David Alan Hepkin

Sujatha Kashyap

Mark Elliott Hack

Agustin Mena, Iii

Grover Herbert Neuman

Greg Robert Mewhinney

Luc Rene Smolders

Ghadir Robert Gholami

Matthew Accapadi

James William VanFleet

Alexander Erik Mericas

Venkat Rajeev Indukuru

Luke Matthew Browning

Herman Dietrich Dierks

James William Van Fleet

Men-Chow Chiang

Greg Mewhinney

A method for processing instructions. The instructions are processed by a processor unit while using a first table in a plurality of tables to predict a set of instructions needed by the processor unit after processing of a conditional instruction. An identification is formed that a rate of success in correctly predicting the set of instructions when using the first table is less than a threshold number. A sequence of the instructions being processed by the processor unit is searched for an instruction that matches a marker in a set of markers for identifying when to use the plurality of tables. An identification that the instruction that matches the marker is formed. A second table from the plurality of tables referenced by the marker is identified. The second table is used in place of the first table.

Using a plurality of tables for improving performance in predicting branches in processor instructions

Illustrated embodiments provide a computer implemented method and data processing system for redispatching a partition by tracking a set of memory pages, belonging to the dispatched partition. In one illustrative embodiment the computer implemented method comprises finding an effective page address to real page address mapping for a page address miss in response to determining the page address miss in a page addressing buffer, and saving the mapping as an entry in an array. The computer implemented method creates a preserved array from the array in response to determining the dispatched partition to be an undispatched partition. The computer implemented method further analyzes of the preserved array for a compressed page in response to determining the undispatched partition is now redispatched, and decompresses the compressed page prior to the partition being redispatched.

Partition redispatching using page tracking

An information handling system includes a processor that executes multiple instructions or instruction threads within a software application program. The information handling system includes operating system software that manages processor system hardware and software in a multi-tasking environment. In one embodiment, the operating system manages instruction completion stall analysis software to determine the cause or causes of instruction stalls. In another embodiment, the stall analysis software cooperates with the operating system software to store instruction completion stall event data on a per instruction basis while the application program executes. The operating system software may cooperate with the stall analysis software to store instruction completion stall data in memory for later manipulation by system users or other software.

Method and apparatus for instruction completion stall identification in an information handling system

A cache within a computer system receives a partial write request and identifies a cache hit of a cache line. The cache line corresponds to the partial write request and includes existing data. In turn, the cache receives partial write data and merges the partial write data with the existing data into the cache line. In one embodiment, the existing data is 'modified' or 'dirty.' In another embodiment, the existing data is &#x201c;shared.&#x201d; In this embodiment, the cache changes the state of the cache line to indicate the storing of the partial write data into the cache line.

Partial line cache write injector for direct memory access write

Standalone software performance optimizer systems for hybrid systems include a hybrid system having a plurality of processors, memory operably connected to the processors, an operating system including a dispatcher loaded into the memory, a multithreaded application read into the memory, and a static performance analysis program loaded into the memory; wherein the static performance analysis program instructs at least one processor to perform static performance analysis on each of the threads, the static performance analysis program instructs at least one processor to assign each thread to a CPU class based on the static performance analysis, and the static performance analysis program instructs at least one processor to store each thread's CPU class. An embodiment of the invention may also include the dispatcher optimally mapping threads to processors using thread CPU classes and remapping threads to processors when a runtime performance analysis classifies a thread differently from the static performance analysis.

Standalone software performance optimizer system for hybrid systems

A method, system and computer-usable medium are disclosed for managing prefetch streams in a virtual machine environment. Compiled application code in a first core, which comprises a Special Purpose Register (SPR) and a plurality of first prefetch engines, initiates a prefetch stream request. If the prefetch stream request cannot be initiated due to unavailability of a first prefetch engine, then an indicator bit indicating a Prefetch Stream Dispatch Fault is set in the SPR, causing a Hypervisor to interrupt the execution of the prefetch stream request. The Hypervisor then calls its associated operating system (OS), which determines prefetch engine availability for a second core comprising a plurality of second prefetch engines. If a second prefetch engine is available, then the OS migrates the prefetch stream request from the first core to the second core, where it is initiated on an available second prefetch engine.

Managing migration of a prefetch stream from one processor core to another processor core

A method, system, and computer usable program product for managing thermal condition of a memory are provided in the illustrative embodiments. A condition that a threshold value of a thermal condition of the memory has been exceeded or is likely to be exceeded is identified. A portion of a first workload is identified as being a cause of exceeding the threshold. A second portion of a second workload is identified, the second portion not causing the threshold to be exceeded when executed. A set of operations corresponding to the first portion is interleaved with a second set of operations corresponding to the second portion. The interleaved first and second portions of the first and second workloads are executed, causing the thermal condition of the memory to remain below the threshold. The second portion may use a second memory, a second area of the memory, or a combination thereof when executing.

Managing thermal condition of a memory

A multiprocessor data processing system (MDPS) with a weakly-ordered architecture providing processing logic for substantially eliminating issuing sync instructions after every store instruction of a well-behaved application. Instructions of a well-behaved application are translated and executed by a weakly-ordered processor. The processing logic includes a lock address tracking utility (LATU), which provides an algorithm and a table of lock addresses, within which each lock address is stored when the lock is acquired by the weakly-ordered processor. When a store instruction is encountered in the instruction stream, the LATU compares the target address of the store instruction against the table of lock addresses. If the target address matches one of the lock addresses, indicating that the store instruction is the corresponding unlock instruction (or lock release instruction), a sync instruction is issued ahead of the store operation. The sync causes all values updated by the intermediate store operations to be flushed out to the point of coherency and be visible to all processors.

Efficient memory update process for well behaved applications executing on a weakly-ordered processor

An approach is provided to identifying cache extension sizes that correspond to different partitions that are running on a computer system. The approach extends a first hardware cache associated with a first processing core that is included in the processor's silicon substrate with a first memory allocation from a system memory area, with the system memory area being external to the silicon substrate and the first memory allocation corresponding to one of the plurality of cache extension sizes that corresponds to one of the partitions that is running on the computer system. The approach further extends a second hardware cache associated with a second processing core also included in the processor's silicon substrate with a second memory allocation from the system memory area with the second memory allocation corresponding to another of the cache extension sizes that corresponds to a different partitions that is being executed by the second processing core.

Flexible use of extended cache using a partition cache footprint

An approach is provided to identify a disabled processing core and an active processing core from a set of processing cores included in a processing node. Each of the processing cores is assigned a cache memory. The approach extends a memory map of the cache memory assigned to the active processing core to include the cache memory assigned to the disabled processing core. A first amount of data that is used by a first process is stored by the active processing core to the cache memory assigned to the active processing core. A second amount of data is stored by the active processing core to the cache memory assigned to the inactive processing core using the extended memory map.

Two partition accelerator and application of tiered flash to cache hierarchy in partition acceleration

A method, programmed medium and system are provided for enabling a core's cache capacity to be increased by using the caches of the disabled or non-enabled cores on the same chip. Caches of disabled or non-enabled cores on a chip are made accessible to store cachelines for those chip cores that have been enabled, thereby extending cache capacity of enabled cores.

Extending cache capacity on multiple-core processor systems

A mechanism for optimizing system performance using spare processing cores in a virtualized environment. When detecting a workload partition needs to run on a virtual processor in the virtualized system, a state of the virtual processor is changed to a wait state. A first node comprising memory that is local to the workload partition is determined. A determination is also made as to whether a non-spare processor core in the first node is available to run the workload partition. If no non-spare processor core is available, a free non-spare processor core in a second node is located, and the state of the free non-spare processor core in the second node is changed to an inactive state. The state of a spare processor core in the first node is changed to an active state, and the workload partition is dispatched to the spare processor core in the first node for execution.

Optimizing system performance using spare cores in a virtualized environment

A method, computer program product, and a data processing system for maintaining objects in a lookup cache is provided. A primary list is populated with a first plurality of objects. The primary list is an unordered list of the first plurality of objects. A secondary list is populated with a second plurality of objects. The secondary list is an ordered list of the second plurality of objects. Periodically, at least one object of the first plurality of objects is demoted to the secondary list, and at least one object of the second plurality of objects is promoted to the primary list.

Optimized least recently used lookup cache

A system and method for allowing jobs originating from different partitions to simultaneously utilize different hardware threads on a processor by concatenating partition identifiers with virtual page identifiers within a processor's translation lookaside buffer is presented. The device includes a translation lookaside buffer that translates concatenated virtual addresses to system-wide real addresses. The device generates concatenated virtual addresses using a partition identifier, which corresponds to a job's originating partition, and a virtual page identifier, which corresponds to the executing instruction, such as an instruction address or data address. In turn, each concatenated virtual address is different, which translates in the translation lookaside buffer to a unique system-wide real address. As such, jobs originating from different partitions are able to simultaneously execute on the device and, therefore, fully utilize each of the device's hardware threads.

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

Mysore Sathyanarayana Srinivas