A universal infrastructure for the run-time monitoring of parallel and distributed applications

On-line tools for parallel and distributed programs require a facility to observe and possibly manipulate the programs' run-time behavior, a so called monitoring system. Currently, most tools use proprietary monitoring techniques that are incompatible to each other and usually apply only to specific target platforms. The On-line Monitoring Interface Specification (OMIS) is the first specification of a universal interface between different tools and a monitoring system, thus enabling interoperable, portable and uniform tool environments. The paper gives an introduction into the basic concepts of OMIS and presents the design and implementation of an OMIS compliant monitoring system (OCM).