A trace-based simulation of pointer swizzling techniques

Abstract

Persistent object-oriented applications that traverse large object graphs can improve their performance by caching objects in main memory while they are being used. While caching offers large performance benefits, the techniques used to locate these cached objects in memory can still impede the application's performance. We present the results of a trace-based simulation study of pointer swizzling techniques (techniques for reducing the cost of access to cached objects). We used traces derived from actual persistent programs to find a class of swizzling techniques that performs well, yet permits changes to the contents of in-memory object caches over the lifetime of an application. Our study demonstrates the superiority of a class of techniques known as "indirect swizzling" for a variety of workloads and system configurations.<>