Abstract
Despite making significant strides in system characterization using fine grained instrumentation or macroanalysis, it is still a challenging task to understand and predict the behaviour of a computer system. The thesis of this paper is that there is a correlation between memory modification patterns and the high-level behavior of the system. To explore this property, we propose a holistic observation of a system’s memory using a non-intrusive approach for sampling and analysis. Our preliminary results have demonstrated that holistic memory observation is feasible and does indeed correlate with system’s condition. We conclude with a discussion on future research directions potentially enabled by our findings.