The PATHS Visualizer

01.06.2006

Abstract:
Designing scalable cluster applications is a difficult task. So is the task of debugging them. In this thesis “The PATHS Visualizer” is presented, a framework for debugging and analyzing communications and performance aspects of a distributed dataflow system.

Applications are monitored using sensors inserted into the network. Trace information from sensors are gathered and synchronized post mortem to give a global communication history of the application. This information is used to animate the execution of the application using a graphical representation of processes and the communications between them. The playback tempo of the visualizations can be scaled down to give detailed information of the communication between processes.

Visualizations are drawn in 3 dimensional graphics using a high resolution display wall to get an overview of the visualizations at the same time preserving the details of the graphics.