Intel Trace Collector

by Intel

Overview

Intel® Cluster Tools assist developers and managers of distributed systems to obtain the best performance.
Intel® Trace Collector brings the advantages of event-based tracing to applications in a low-overhead tracing library. It supports MPI, Java, and multi-threaded processes with and without MPI. The tool is completely thread safe, allowing tracing of multi-threaded MPI applications. Automatic function profiling is also now supported on all platforms when the GNU Compiler Collection is used to compile C or Fortran source code. Intel® Trace Analyzer and Intel Trace Collector support IA-32 and Intel® Itanium® architectures with Linux (MPICH). Intel Trace Collector supports the LAM MPI implementation on IA-32 architectures and HPUX (HP-MPI) and SGI Altix (SGI-MPI) systems on Intel Itanium 2 microarchitectures. Intel Trace Analyzer displays the data produced by Intel Trace Collector.

Features and Benefits

• Profiling library records distributed, event-based trace data
• Low-overhead and compact data representation provides structured trace file format (STF)
• Completely thread safe to allow tracing of multi-threaded message passing interface (MPI) applications
• Easy-to-use application program interface (API)
• Low intrusion instrumentation for MPI, Java, or multi-threaded applications
• Complements Intel?s offerings designed for developing high-performance software including compilers, libraries, and Intel® VTune? Performance Analyzers
• Automatic function profiling supported on all platforms when the GNU Compiler Collection is used to compile C or Fortran source code
• Global Array programming model allows tracing and performance analysis of applications

Graphically Analyze Runtime Event Traces

• Event-based tracing tool ? Successful use of Intel Trace Collector for MPI performance analysis demonstrates the advantages of event-based tracing compared to exclusively statistical approaches. The timeline display helps developers visualize the concurrent behavior of parallel applications. Statistics can be calculated on demand for given time intervals and specific processes. The tool also brings the advantages of event-based tracing to non-MPI applications such as Java processes and multi-threaded processes without MPI. Java function profiling is possible without recompiling the Java classes. In addition, the traditional Virtual Terminal application programming interface (VT API) is also available to instrument Java source code.
• Ease of use ? Intel Trace Collector works as an add-on to existing MPI implementations. In most cases, using the tool requires relinking with Intel Trace Collector library. If application-defined events must be recorded, a recompile may be necessary. The low-overhead instrumentation limits the perturbation of the application execution, assuring that the runtime behavior remains fundamentally unaltered. Experience shows that lessons learned from studying the traces of a run with Intel Trace Collector invariably lead to improved performance of non-instrumented runs.
• Structured trace file format ? Intel Trace Collector introduces a new file format for trace data: the Structured Trace Format (STF). This file format was designed from the ground up for scalability and compact data representation. Files can be written in parallel, thus generating trace files faster, and allows random access to portions of a trace, making it suitable for analysis of traces too large for Intel Trace Analyzer.
• Scalability and memory handling ? Reduction of large memory consumption, often associated with event-based tracing, is addressed by the filtering and memory-handling capabilities of Intel Trace Collector. For deep function call stacks, folding avoids superfluous details by logging the first call to a system function and then hiding all internal functions below this call. Trace data is cached in memory to reduce runtime overhead, but can be written to a cache file in the background without blocking the application. Counters can be used to monitor Intel Trace Collector's memory handling. If that still interferes with the application or simply produces unneeded data, Intel Trace Collector can be used in a purely statistical mode. In this mode, statistics regarding function calls, messages, and collective operations are calculated by Intel Trace Collector at runtime and stored without event data. Intel Trace Analyzer can display these statistics instantaneously without having to load any trace data.
• Completely thread safe ? Intel Trace Collector allows tracing of multi-threaded MPI applications. The tool brings the advantages of event-based tracing to non-MPI applications by supporting Java processes and multi-threaded processes without MPI. Java function profiling is possible without recompiling the Java classes. In addition, the traditional VT API is available to instrument Java source code. Automatic function profiling is supported on all platforms when the GNU Compiler Collection is used to compile C or Fortran source code.
  

Processor and Data Scalability

Intel Trace Collector easily scales up to several hundred processors due to a hierarchical approach to address data scalability.

Diverse Hardware and Software Support

Intel Trace Collector supports IA-32 and Itanium architectures with Linux. MPI implementations such as MPICH, LAM MPI, ScaMPI, and Myrinet MPI are supported on IA-32 architectures. On Itanium architectures, MPICH, HP-UX (HP-MPI), and SGI Altix (SGI-MPI) systems are supported. Automatic function profiling is supported on all platforms when the GNU Compiler Collection is used to compile C or Fortran source code.

Intel® Premier Support

Every purchase of an Intel® Software Development Product includes a year of support services, which provides access to Intel® Premier Support and all product updates during that time. Intel Premier Support gives you online access to technical notes, application notes, and documentation. Install the product, and then register to get support and product update information.