Speed vs. Accuracy in Simulation for I/O-Intensive Applications

This paper presents a family of simulators that have been developed for data-intensive applications, and a methodology to select the most efficient one based on a user-supplied requirement for accuracy. The methodology consists of a series of tests that select an appropriate simulation based on the attributes of the application. In addition, each simulator provides two estimates of application execution time: one for the minimum expected time and the other for the maximum. We present the results of applying the strategy to existing applications and show that we can accurately simulate applications tens to hundreds of times faster than application execution time.