|
The lmbench suite of operating system microbenchmarks provides a
set of portable programs for use in cross-platform comparisons. We
have augmented the lmbench suite to increase its flexibility and
precision, and to improve its methodological and statistical
operation. This enables the detailed study of interactions between
the operating system and the hardware architecture. We describe
modifications to lmbench, and then use our new benchmark suite,
hbench:OS, to examine how the performance of operating system
primitives under NetBSD has scaled with the processor evolution of
the Intel x86 architecture. Our analysis shows that off-chip memory
system design continues to influence operating system performance
in a significant way and that key design decisions (such as suboptimal
choices of DRAM and cache technology, and memory-bus and cache
coherency protocols) can essentially nullify the performance benefits
of the aggressive execution core and sophisticated on-chip memory
system of a modern processor such as the Intel Pentium Pro.
|
