Parametrized dataflow scenarios

Abstract

The FSM-based scenario-aware dataflow (FSM-SADF) model of computation has been introduced to facilitate the analysis of dynamic streaming applications. FSM-SADF interprets application's execution as an execution of a sequence of static modes of operation called scenarios. Each scenario is modeled using a synchronous dataflow (SDF) graph (SDFG), while a finite-state machine (FSM) is used to encode scenario occurrence patterns. However, FSM-SADF can precisely capture only those dynamic applications whose behaviors can be abstracted into a reasonably sized set of scenarios (coarse-grained dynamism). Nevertheless, in many cases, the application may exhibit thousands or even millions of behaviours (fine-grained dynamism). In this work, we generalize the concept of FSM-SADF to one that is able to model dynamic applications exhibiting fine-grained dynamism. We achieve this by applying parametrization to the FSM-SADF's base model, i.e. SDF, and defining scenarios over parametrized SDFGs. We refer to the extension as parametrized FSM-SADF (PFSM-SADF). Thereafter, we present a novel and a fully parametric analysis technique that allows us to derive tight worst-case performance (throughput and latency) guarantees for PFSM-SADF specifications. We evaluate our approach on a realistic case-study from the multimedia domain.