Collecting transactional execution characteristics during transactional execution

• US 9,710,271 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2014
• Issued: 07/18/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Cain, III, Harold W., Salapura, Valentina, Shum, Chung-Lung K., Busaba, Fadi Y., Greiner, Dan F., Gschwind, Michael Karl, Schwarz, Eric M.
• Primary Examiner(s): GEIB, BENJAMIN P
• Application Number:
  US14/318,782
• Publication Number:
  US 20150378729A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,114 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0811 with multilevel cache hierarchies
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0831 using a bus scheme, e.g. with bus monitoring or watching means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/084 with a shared cache
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0875 with dedicated cache, e.g. instruction or stack
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/1663 Access to shared memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1024 Latency reduction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/314 In storage network, e.g. network attached cache
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/452 Instruction code
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/30098 Register arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/3842 Speculative instruction execution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/467 Transactional memory G06F9/528 takes precedence

Abstract

Execution of a transaction may be initiated by a CPU in a transactional execution (TX) environment. A set of TX performance characteristics of the transaction during the transactional execution may be collected and stored in a location specified by an instruction of the transaction when the transactional execution ends or aborts.

Claims

1. A computer system for collecting transactional execution (TX) performance characteristics of a transaction in a TX environment, the computer system comprising:

a memory; and

a processor in communications with the memory, wherein the computer system is configured to perform a method, said method comprising;

initiating, by the processor, a transactional execution of the transaction;

collecting, by the processor, TX performance characteristics of the transaction during the transactional execution;

storing the collected TX performance characteristics in a specified location based on any one of successfully ending the transaction and aborting the transaction, wherein the specified location is specified by an instruction of the transaction;

wherein collecting the TX performance characteristics is performed based on a plurality of conflict detection policies; and

in response to failing to detect at least one conflict in at least one first entry associated with the stored collected TX performance characteristics based on the plurality of conflict detection policies, overwriting the at least one first entry associated with the stored collected TX performance characteristics with at least one second entry associated with the stored collected TX performance characteristics that includes one or more conflicts based on the plurality of conflict detection policies.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the TX performance characteristics includes any one or more of a duration of transactional execution of the transaction, a count of storage accesses by the transaction, and a count of retries of the transaction before successful completion.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the TX characteristics includes TX performance characteristics for a single execution of the transaction.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the transaction is a constrained transaction.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the storing is performed based on ending the transaction.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the instruction is any one of a transaction begin instruction and a transaction end instruction.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the storing further comprises saving the collected TX characteristics in a list of objects.

8. A computer program product for collecting transactional execution (TX) performance characteristics of a transaction in a TX environment, the computer program product comprising:

a computer readable storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method, the method comprising;

initiating, by the processor, a transactional execution of the transaction;

collecting, by the processor, TX performance characteristics of the transaction during the transactional execution;

storing, by the processor, the collected TX performance characteristics based any one of successfully ending the transaction and aborting the transaction; and

wherein the initiating is performed by execution of an instruction that includes a TBEGIN instruction in a program by the processor, the TBEGIN instruction specifying a parameter, the parameter designating a storage location for the storing of the collected TX performance characteristics;

wherein collecting the TX performance characteristics is performed based on a plurality of conflict detection policies; and

in response to failing to detect at least one conflict in at least one first entry associated with the stored collected TX performance characteristics based on the plurality of conflict detection policies, overwriting the at least one first entry associated with the stored collected TX performance characteristics with at least one second entry associated with the stored collected TX performance characteristics that includes one or more conflicts based on the plurality of conflict detection policies.

9. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the TX performance characteristics includes any one or more of a duration of transactional execution of the transaction, a count of storage accesses by the transaction, and a count of retries of the transaction before successful completion.

10. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the TX characteristics includes TX performance characteristics for a single execution of the transaction.

11. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the transaction is a constrained transaction.

12. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the storing is performed based on ending the transaction.

13. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the instruction is any one of a transaction begin instruction and a transaction end instruction.

14. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the storing further comprises saving the collected TX characteristics in a list of objects.