Forecasting Based Interference Analysis: Modeling Multicore Interference from Observable Factors

While there is significant interest in the use of COTS multicore platforms for Real-time Systems, there has been very little in terms of practical methods to calculate the effects of interference between tasks on such systems. COTS multicore platforms present two distinct challenges: firstly, the constant interference between tasks competing for shared resource such as cache, and secondly the surrender of control of hardware which can result in complex or unknown hardware features. This paper proposes a new technique, Forecast-Based Interference analysis, which mitigates both of these issues by combining measurement based techniques with statistical techniques and forecast modeling to enable the prediction of an interference factor for a given set of tasks, in an automated and reliable manner.