Trace visualization is a way to understand the behavior of an application on computer systems. In this paper we describe the design and implementation of a Gantt Chart visualization tool for visualizing multi-dimensional trace files, particularly traces from Message Passing Interface (MPI) programs and Apache servers. An MPI tracing library is developed for MPI programs, and an Apache server plug-in is developed to generate Web traces. Since the amount of trace data may be large, utilities are provided to convert and merge multiple event trace files into one scalable, self-defining interval file for visualization. The interval format facilitates the development of multiple time-space diagrams for visualization tools. For MPI traces, each record also includes an instruction address for source code association, which provides a way to display the source code and pin-point the line that generates the event.

In this paper we describe a trace analysis framework, from trace generation to visualization. It includes a unified tracing facility on IBMâ SPä systems, a self-defining interval file format, an API for framework extensions, utilities for merging and statistics generation, and a visualization tool with preview and multiple time-space diagrams. The trace environment is extremely scalable, and combines MPI events with system activities in the same set of trace files, one for each SMP node. Since the amount of trace data may be very large, utilities are developed to convert and merge individual trace files into a self-defining interval trace file with multiple frame directories. The interval format allows the development of multiple time-space diagrams, such as thread-activity view, processor-activity view, etc., from the same interval file. A visualization tool, Jumpshot, is modified to visualize these views. A statistics utility is developed using the API, along with its graphics viewer.

Office-by-Example (OBE) is an integrated office information system that has been under development at IBM Research. OBE, an extension of Query-by-Example, supports various office features such as database tables, word processing, electronic mail, graphics, images, and so forth. These seemingly heterogeneous features are integrated through a language feature called example elements . Applications involving example elements are processed by the database manager, an integrated part of the OBE system. In this paper we describe the facilities and architecture of the OBE system and discuss the techniques for integrating heterogeneous objects.