Control theory for principled heap sizing

White, D.R., Singer, J. , Aitken, J.M. and Jones, R.E. (2013) Control theory for principled heap sizing. In: ISMM '13, International Symposium on Memory Management, Seattle, WA, USA, 20 Jun 2013, pp. 27-38. (doi: 10.1145/2555670.2466481)

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Abstract

We propose a new, principled approach to adaptive heap sizing based on control theory. We review current state-of-the-art heap sizing mechanisms, as deployed in Jikes RVM and HotSpot. We then formulate heap sizing as a control problem, apply and tune a standard controller algorithm, and evaluate its performance on a set of well-known benchmarks. We find our controller adapts the heap size more responsively than existing mechanisms. This responsiveness allows tighter virtual machine memory footprints while preserving target application throughput, which is ideal for both embedded and utility computing domains. In short, we argue that formal, systematic approaches to memory management should be replacing ad-hoc heuristics as the discipline matures. Control-theoretic heap sizing is one such systematic approach.

Item Type:Conference Proceedings
Additional Information:ISBN: 9781450321006
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:White, Dr David and Singer, Dr Jeremy
Authors: White, D.R., Singer, J., Aitken, J.M., and Jones, R.E.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2013 ACM
First Published:First published in ISMM '13 Proceedings of the 2013 international symposium on memory management
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher
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