HP Caliper 5.3 User Guide (5900-1558, February 2011)

measurement
configuration file
A file that HP Caliper uses to perform a particular measurement, such as scgprof or icache.
Each measurement has a corresponding measurement configuration file. See “HP Caliper
Measurement Configuration Files” (p. 42).
measurement run
folder
In the HP Caliper GUI, a folder that contains information about the types of data available for a
single measurement run. It can also contain the collection specification used to collect the data
in the folder.
nop A “no-operation” instruction.
options file A text file containing a list of HP Caliper command-line options and possibly other command-line
syntax, including a measurement configuration file and program to be measured.
overview
measurement
A measurement that enables collecting fprof, dcache, and cstack data in one single collection
run.
per-process
measurement
A measurement performed on individual processes, compared with a system-wide measurement
performed on all CPUs in the system.
performance
monitor
configuration
(PMC)/performance
monitor data
(PMD)
A set of registers used to configure the performance monitors (PMC) and provide data values
from the performance monitors (PMD). In other words, the PMC register maintains control
information about what to monitor and the PMD register holds the actual data that results from
the monitoring. The Integrity servers processor has four 48–bit performance counters (PMC/PMD
pairs), and the Integrity servers dual-core Itanium 2 and Itanium 9300 quad-core processor have
12 48–bit performance counters (PMC/PMD pairs).
performance
monitoring unit
(PMU)
A unit in the Integrity servers processor family that monitors events on the I/O processor's buses.
The PMU is used to calculate bandwidth, data throughput, and efficiency. HP Caliper uses data
provided by the PMU for its analysis.
PMU histogram
report
A report that shows results grouped by function. In HP Caliper, these measurements produce PMU
histogram reports: alat, branch, cgprof, cstack, cycles, dcache, dtlb, fprof, icache,
itlb, scgprof, and traps.
pmu_trace
measurement
A measurement, provided by the pmu_trace measurement configuration file, that measures and
reports traces of sampled PMU data associated with the application for each kernel thread.
precise
measurement
An instrumentation-based measurement that gives you exact information about every execution
path in your program. See “Precise Measurements ” (p. 26).
predicated off
instruction
An instruction that entered the instruction pipeline but had its execution aborted before completion.
A predicated off instruction has had its predicate changed to False. A predicated on instruction
has a predicate of True.
predication A technique used in the Integrity servers processor family whereby possible code branches are
executed in parallel before a branch condition is proved. (This is in contrast to the branch
prediction technique, where a branch is predicted and executed before the condition is proved.)
Instructions are associated with a predicate, which determines whether the instruction will be
executed fully or not. With predication, branches and the costs associated with them can be
eliminated or lessened.
prefetch A request to the main memory system to preload the cache with needed data.
processor set On HP-UX, a set of processors grouped together for exclusive access to applications assigned to
that processor set. Each application is assigned to a processor set and will run only on processors
in the assigned processor set.
project In the HP Caliper GUI, a set of one or more folders that can contain two types of information:
collection specifications and measurement runs.
register stack
engine (RSE)
The part of the Integrity servers processor that moves registers between the register stack and the
backing store in memory.
retired instruction A successfully (though not necessarily fully) executed instruction.
rule file A file used by the HP Caliper Advisor to analyze an application. A rule file contains one or more
independent rule functions and is read, compiled, and executed by the Advisor.
safe instruction
recognition (SIR)
A technique used in the Integrity servers processor family to support precise exceptions.
256 Glossary