A Performance Analysis Tool for Interactive Applications on the Grid

Abstract

The use of the Grid for interactive applications imposes new requirements on tools supporting performance analysis, which are not well addressed by tools available in the area of parallel and distributed programming. The two most important demands are an on-line mode of operation, and the ability to measure user-defined, application-specific metrics, such as, for example, the response time of a specific user interaction. The paper starts with an analysis of these requirements, which is based on real-world applications developed in the European CrossGrid project. The most important feature of these applications is the presence of a person in the main computing loop, who inspects intermediate results and controls the further behavior of the application. Based on the results of the requirements analysis, a new performance analysis tool G-PM is currently being implemented. The paper outlines the main ideas as well as some design details of GPM, with a focus on the concept of user-defined metrics, the possible problems of this concept, and some of its implementation aspects.