Cross-platform parallel debugging and performance analysis tools

Abstract

Versatile and easy-to-use parallel debuggers and performance analysis tools are crucial for the development of correct and efficient high performance applications. Although vendors of HPC platforms usually offer debugging and performance tools in some form, it is desirable to have the same interface across multiple platforms so that the user does not have to learn a different tool for each platform. Furthermore, a tool should have an easy-to-use interface that intuitively supports the debugging and performance analysis tasks the user needs to carry out, as well as the parallel programming language and paradigm being used. This paper describes a survey and evaluation of cross-platform debugging and performance analysis tools. In addition, we describe a current project which is developing a cross-platform API for accessing hardware performance counters. This paper necessarily represents a snapshot in time and as such will become out-of-date as new tools and new versions of existing tools are released. Current information and up-to-date evaluations of parallel debugging and performance analysis tools may be found at the Parallel Tools Library web site at http ://www. nhse. org/pt lib/.