Collaborative Research: CSR-AES: REEact: A Robust Execution Environment for Fragile Multicore Systems

This research focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of an advanced execution system, called REEact (Robust Execution Environment), which dynamically adapts an application's execution to the runtime resources landscape originating from the sources of heterogeneity in a next generation multi-core (CMP) chip. The sources of heterogeneity of interest are those that arise from process variation that impacts the maximum performance of individual cores and memory blocks, from power optimizations such as DFVS that result in varying core performance over time and core shut down due to thermal emergencies, and from reliability effects resulting in cores that must be disabled due to permanent faults that occur in the field. REEact is a type of virtual execution environment (VEE) that mediates, controls, and adapts the application's execution. It employs a combination of techniques to adapt both the hardware resources and the application's software code to accommodate the heterogeneous nature of the CMP to provide the best performance and power solution where not all of the CMP cores and/or memory blocks are available. This research impacts CMP technology by enabling the use of these architectures for high performance computing. With effective strategies for managing heterogeneity, scientists, consumers and business people will more effectively use high-performance applications, leading to greater advances in areas such as pharmaceutical development, financial market forecasting, and environmental science model¬ing. This research impacts both undergraduate and graduate students through their involvement in the research projects and through courses and course modules on CMPs.