Your Task for Part I

The purpose of this first part of the coursework is to take a given application and analyse it's behaviour in a number of ways.

Let us assume it has been decided that Linpack, a linear algebra package, is a good example of the type of scientific applications for which this new system is intended.

You are required to investigate the behaviour of this program using the profiling tools at your disposal on the SUN workstations. You are given access to the C language source for Linpack, which can be found in:

 
    ./src/partI/linpack.c

Your task is to supply answers to the following questions:

1.

What routines dominate the execution time, and to what degree?

2.

What is the approximate breakdown of dynamic instruction frequencies, given the categories of table 3, within the most dominant routine?

3.

For each conditional control transfer, within the three most dominant routines, what is the predictability of the branch outcome?

4.

Based on your analysis of this application, what hardware features or characteristics of the architecture do you think would be necessary for achieving high performance on this type of scientific application?