PADTAD 2011 - Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Systems: Testing, Analysis, and Debugging (PADTAD - IX)

Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Systems: Testing, Analysis, and Debugging
(PADTAD - IX)
July 17, 2011
In conjunction with International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis
(ISSTA 2011, July 17-21)
Toronto, ON, Canada
The PADTAD 2011 workshop is a one-day event at ISSTA 2011, focusing on techniques and systems that aid in the testing, analysis, and debugging of multi-threaded, parallel and distributed applications and systems. The workshop has a practical and applied emphasis on systems that have been implemented in (at least) prototype form, but also welcomes submissions on teaching related issues on these topics.

Although debuggers and profilers are the traditional examples of testing and debugging tools on sequential machines, there are issues unique to concurrent systems that are not commonly addressed. Examples of such significant challenges include deadlock, load imbalance, data sharing patterns, race conditions, and contention. Established testing techniques and tools are insufficient for non-sequential programs because they largely ignore timing and scheduling, which are inherent in concurrent systems. Beyond the shortcomings of current tools and technologies, the rising generation of programmers and designers need to be more versed in concurrent systems design and programming.

Education and curriculum are critical to realizing the full potential of multi-core technology and we need to begin training the students who will make multi-core happen on a large scale. As such, we strongly encourage abstracts and regular papers devoted to education and curriculum at all levels, including pedagogy, exercises, projects, experience reports, etc.
PADTAD welcomes papers and experience reports from software development and testing practitioners. We are looking for papers that succinctly address practical software testing and quality improvement, presenting empirical results or reporting on open problems. All industrial papers should discuss broader implications and usage of the specific topic and will be accepted to the PADTAD industrial track.

The following is a broad list of topics of interest when referring to multi-threaded, parallel, or distributed applications:
Code review techniques and tools
Curriculum and education for multi-core design, programming, testing, debugging and analysis
Data-race and deadlock detection
Debugging advanced network interface technologies (e.g., Myrinet, VIA)
Domain-specific languages for testing, debugging and analysis
Fault injection and analysis
Formal specification and verification of programming libraries and programs
Functional and structural testing and debugging
Performance testing, debugging, and analysis
Programming techniques and methodologies (requiring less testing or debugging)
Replay and similar techniques for multi-threaded applications
Static and dynamic program analysis
Test generation algorithms and tools
Testing and debugging techniques for time-dependent bugs in hardware and software
Testing, debugging, and analysis of MPI, OpenMP, and other library based applications
Testing, debugging, and analysis of domain-specific languages
Testing, debugging, and analysis of fault tolerant applications and systems
Testing, debugging, and analysis of real-time applications and systems
Testing, debugging, and analysis of transactional memory programs
Testing embedded system software
Testing security of systems and applications in the cloud
Tools for testing, debugging, and analysis
Techniques for multi-core processors
Accepted papers will be published in CD-ROM proceedings and will be included in the ACM Digital Library.
Support for student attendance is available. Please contact the workshop chairs for details.
Workshop details in PDF format (TBC).
Workshop details in Word format (TBC).
PADTAD 2011 flyer in PDF format (TBC).