Preserving the Virtual Memory Abstraction
As computer architects, one of our key tasks is to propose abstractions that improve system programmability in a manner that stands the test of time. One such abstraction, that has been crucial to the success of computing, is the concept of virtual memory. In this...
Accelerators in data centers: the systems perspective
In this blogpost I share what I learned at the Seventh Workshop on Multi-core and Rack-scale Systems (MaRS) co-located with the EuroSYS Conference on Computer Systems held in Belgrade in April. It is a small but vigorous interdisciplinary workshop that focuses on the...
Blurring the Lines between Memory and Compute
Computer designers have traditionally separated the role of storage and computation. Memories stored data. Processors computed them. Is this distinction necessary? A human brain doesn’t separate the two so distinctly, so why should a computer? Before I address this...
In-Depth System Analysis Using Hardware-Assisted Tracing
To a developer, debugging, profiling and tracing tools are akin to the tools that a craftsman carries in a belt on construction sites. In fact, constructing robust code is as important as observing how it behaves during actual execution on production hardware....
Back to the future for commodity processor design? Biased perspectives from the data world.
I’m not sure if I should be writing a blog for architects. As some of you know, my expertise is in database systems. In response to this blog, I’m likely to get flames from some of you informing me about how I have missed the boat in my observations. If that happens,...
False-Accepts and False-Rejects
There are many significant issues with our review process which has both false-accepts (when papers that should be rejected are accepted) and false-rejects (when papers that should be accepted are rejected). I am not talking about borderline cases that require nuanced...
ASPLOS ’17, A Crossroads of Communities
This year’s 22nd ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS’17) has just concluded. ASPLOS’17 represents a milestone across several axes for the community. This year’s...
The Unreasonable Ineffectiveness of Machine Learning in Computer Systems Research
In 1960, the physicist Eugene Wigner wrote a famous essay titled “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences” in which he explored the question of why mathematics is so remarkably useful in the natural sciences. A contemporary example of...
Geocomputers and the Commercial Borg
Although the desktop is largely an after-thought market of modern computer companies, many computer architects conceptualize modern computers as essentially a miniaturized desktop with some attached I/O widgets. In that computer, we take an ISA-centric definition that takes us back to the halcyon days of the RISC/CISC wars. Servers are x86 and run Linux. Mobile devices are ARM and run iOS/Android. But our emerging applications do not run on a single machine on our desk. A single application executes across many machines of diverse types that are strategically positioned across the planet. It is no longer appropriate to characterize them by what ISA or operating system is used. It is time that we update our mental model of the architecture of the computer that these applications run on today.
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