The present invention provides a method, computer program product, input/output
device, and computer system for stress testing the I/O subsystem of a computer
system. An input/output device capable of engaging in repetitive direct memory
access (DMA) transfers with pseudo-randomized transfer parameters is allowed to
execute multiple DMA transfers with varying parameters. In this way, a single type
of device may be used to simulate the effects of multiple types of devices. Multiple
copies of the same I/O device may be used concurrently in a single computer system
along with processor software to access the same portions of memory. In this way,
false sharing, true sharing may be effected.
