Month: May 2016

Intel Blog: Finding a Linux Kernel bug by running Simics on Simics

intel sw smallI love bug and debug stories in general. Bugs are a fun and interesting part of software engineering, programming, and systems development. Stories that involve running Simics on Simics to find bugs are a particular category that is fascinating, as it shows how to apply serious software technology to solve problems related to said serious software technology.  On the Intel Software and Services blog, I just posted a story about just that: debugging a Linux kernel bug provoked by Simics, by running Simics on a small network of machines inside of Simics. See https://blogs.intel.com/evangelists/2016/05/30/finding-kernel-1-2-3-bug-running-wind-river-simics-simics/ for the full story.

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First post on the Intel Software and Services Blog

intel sw small I have posted my first blog post to the Intel Software and Services blog channel. The Intel Software and Services blog is one channel in the Intel corporate blog you find at https://blogs.intel.com/.  Other bloggers on the Software and Services channel write about security, UEFI, cloud, graphics, open source software, and other topics. Intel has a large software development community, and we produce quite a bit of software – and we do write about the innovations that come out of Intel that rely on software.

On my part, I will be posting more materials on simulation at Intel, as part of my role as a simulation evangelist on the Software and Service blog channel.

 

David Kanter on Benchmarking and Simulation (Tech Report podcast)

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The Tech Report podcast did an interview with David Kanter earlier this year. David Kanter is an industry veteran who runs http://www.realworldtech.com/, as well as being a regular contributor to the Microprocessor Report. I have read the MPR since my PhD days, and it is still one of the best places for information on new chips. The subject of the podcast episode was an analysis of the somewhat mysterious Softmachines “VISC” processor architecture. However, it rather turned into a very good discussion on how you do performance predictions, performance projections of competing systems, and the nature of benchmarking and benchmark numbers.

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Wind River Guest Blog: Interview with Sangeeta, a CoFluent user doing Software Modeling

Cofluent studioEven though I am now working for Intel, the nice folks at Wind River have let me do blogging on the Wind River blog as a guest anyway.  I first blogged about the fantastic world of simulators that I have found inside Intel, and now a longer technical piece has appeared on a use of Intel CoFluent Studio. I interviewed Sangeeta Ghangam at Intel, who used CoFluent Studio to model the behavior of a complex software load on a gateway, connected to a set of sensor nodes. It is rather different from the very concrete software execution I work on with Simics. Being able to model and estimate the performance and cost and size of systems before you go to the concrete implementation is an important part of software and systems architecture, and CoFluent offers a neat tool for that.

Read the full story on the Wind River blog!