In addition to the articles covered so far in class, please read https://www.eng.aubum.edu/-xqialpubsiipccc10-prefetch.pdf. An Automatic Prefetching and Caching System, (MACS for short), by Joshua Lewis et. al., the 29th IEEE International Performance Computing and Communications Conference, IPCCC 2010.
Note: Two of the references of the above mentioned paper are articles that we have studied! Reference [5] has the automatic prefetching algorithm by Griffloen and Appleton. Reference 19.1 is the paper by Patterson et at that does prefetching based on application hints.
When you are reading this paper, please pay particular attention to predictive prefetching versus informed (instmctive) prefetching and the advantages and disadvantages of each, pipelining prefetches, association windows. Cbuff versus Pbuff, and the algorithm for dynamic buffer cache partitioning.
1. Pick one of the articles we've studied so far (either in class, or Lewis' MACS article, An Automatic Prefetching and Caching System, that is referenced above), and say what you like or dislike most about that particular article.
2. Consider MACS. (See the link above) Part of APACS is a dynamic buffer/cache partitioning algorithm. In this, a cache is partitioned into a prefetch buffer and a cache buffer. The relative sizes of these changes dynamically.
Under what situation would the cache buffer increase in size (and therefore the prefetch buffer decrease in size)? You do not have to use symbols in your answer. If you use symbols, clearly explain what they mean. I'm looking for a clear, consist, easy to understand answer.
(You do not have to say how much the cache buffer would increase by in this situation.)