source: doc/theses/mubeen_zulfiqar_MMath/uw-ethesis-frontpgs.tex @ b12e4ad

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        {\Huge\bf High-Performance Concurrent Memory Allocation}

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        by \\

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        {\Large Mubeen Zulfiqar} \\

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        A thesis \\
        presented to the University of Waterloo \\
        in fulfillment of the \\
        thesis requirement for the degree of \\
        Master of Mathematics \\
        in \\
        Computer Science \\

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        Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, \the\year \\

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        \copyright{} Mubeen Zulfiqar \the\year \\
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% E X A M I N I N G   C O M M I T T E E (Required for Ph.D. theses only)
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\begin{center}\textbf{Examining Committee Membership}\end{center}
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The following served on the Examining Committee for this thesis.
The decision of the Examining Committee is by majority vote.
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Internal-External Member: \=  \kill % using longest text to define tab length
External Examiner: \>  Bruce Bruce \\
\> Professor, Dept. of Philosophy of Zoology, University of Wallamaloo \\
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Supervisor(s): \> Ann Elk \\
\> Professor, Dept. of Zoology, University of Waterloo \\
\> Andrea Anaconda \\
\> Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Zoology, University of Waterloo \\
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Internal Member: \> Pamela Python \\
\> Professor, Dept. of Zoology, University of Waterloo \\
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Internal-External Member: \=  \kill % using longest text to define tab length
Internal-External Member: \> Meta Meta \\
\> Professor, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Waterloo \\
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Other Member(s): \> Leeping Fang \\
\> Professor, Dept. of Fine Art, University of Waterloo \\
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  % The following is a sample Declaration Page as provided by the GSO
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I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy
of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my
examiners.

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  \noindent
I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public.

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% A B S T R A C T
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\begin{center}\textbf{Abstract}\end{center}

Memory management takes a sequence of program generated allocation/deallocation requests and attempts to satisfy them within a fixed-sized block of memory while minimizing the total amount of memory used.
A general-purpose dynamic-allocation algorithm cannot anticipate future allocation requests so its output is rarely optimal.
However, memory allocators do take advantage of regularities in allocation patterns for typical programs to produce excellent results, both in time and space (similar to LRU paging).
In general, allocators use a number of similar techniques, each optimizing specific allocation patterns.
Nevertheless, memory allocators are a series of compromises, occasionally with some static or dynamic tuning parameters to optimize specific program-request patterns.

The goal of this thesis is to build a low-latency memory allocator for both kernel and user multi-threaded systems, which is competitive with the best current memory allocators, while extending the feature set of existing and new allocator routines.
A new llheap memory-allocator is created that achieves all of these goals, while maintaining and managing sticky allocation properties for zero-filled and aligned allocations without a performance loss.
Hence, it becomes possible to use @realloc@ frequently as a safe operation, rather than just occasionally, because it preserves sticky properties when enlarging storage requests.
Furthermore, the ability to query sticky properties and information allows programmers to write safer programs, as it is possible to dynamically match allocation styles from unknown library routines that return allocations.
The C allocation API is also extended with @resize@, advanced @realloc@, @aalloc@, @amemalign@, and @cmemalign@ so programmers do not make mistakes writing theses useful allocation operations.
llheap is embedded into the \uC and \CFA runtime systems, both of which have user-level threading.
The ability to use \CFA's advanced type-system (and possibly \CC's too) to combine advanced memory operations into one allocation routine using named arguments shows how far the allocation API can be pushed, which increases safety and greatly simplifies programmer's use of dynamic allocation.

The llheap allocator also provides comprehensive statistics for all allocation operations, which are invaluable in understanding and debugging a program's dynamic behaviour.
No other memory allocator examined in the thesis provides such comprehensive statistics gathering.
As well, llheap provides a debugging mode where allocations are checked with internal pre/post conditions and invariants. It is extremely useful, especially for students.
While not as powerful as the @valgrind@ interpreter, a large number of allocations mistakes are detected.
Finally, contention-free statistics gathering and debugging have a low enough cost to be used in production code.

A micro-benchmark test-suite is started for comparing allocators, rather than relying on a suite of arbitrary programs. It has been an interesting challenge.
These micro-benchmarks have adjustment knobs to simulate allocation patterns hard-coded into arbitrary test programs.
Existing memory allocators, glibc, dlmalloc, hoard, jemalloc, ptmalloc3, rpmalloc, tbmalloc, and the new allocator llheap are all compared using the new micro-benchmark test-suite.
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\textbf{Acknowledgements}

I would like to thank all the people who made this thesis possible.

I would like to acknowledge Peter A. Buhr for his assistance and support throughout the process.
It would have been impossible without him.

I would like to acknowledge Gregor Richards and Trevor Brown for reading my thesis quickly and giving me great feedback on my work.

Also, I would say thanks to my team members at PLG especially Thierry, Michael, and Andrew for their input.

Finally, a special thank you to Huawei Canada for funding this work.
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\begin{center}\textbf{Dedication}\end{center}

This is dedicated to the one I love.
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