In both the design of parallel computer systems and the development of applications, it is very important to have good performance prediction tools. This paper describes a new approach -- PetaSIM, which is designed for the rapid prototyping stage of machine or application design. PetaSIM aims at good but not fully accurate results with a convenient applet interface for specification and interactive change of system parameters. Computers, networks and applications are described as objects in a Java IDL (Interface Definition Language) with special attention to the proper representation of caches and hierarchical memories. PetaSIM represents a prototype for a performance specification language or PSL. We present encouraging initial results for a set of data-intensive applications from the University of Maryland. We discuss the extension of PetaSIM to support applications of the type found in distributed collaborative engineering.
Keywords: Performance Estimation, Architecture Description, Performance Specification Language, Collaborative Engineering