The development of performance analysis tools in Barcelona started in 1991 within a research group at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC). After BSC's formation the Performance Tools Group became one of the main research areas within UPC’s Computer Sciences Department.

BSC are internationally recognized as HPC specialists and expert tool developers. From the very beginning BSC promoted designs and methodologies with flexibility, simplicity and the ability to interact with qualitative and quantitative information at their heart. These features allow performance analysis experts to use the same tools whether using novel homogeneous and heterogeneous multi-core architectures or using more traditional highly scalable cluster systems.

From BSC’s perspective parallel performance analysis can be considered in some sense an art, where the experience and intuition of the analyst drives the analysis and determines the quality of the results. In addition, the group’s philosophy is that more people would be undertaking performance analysis of their software if they had the necessary skills and expertise. For these reasons the Performance Tools Group at BSC continuously provides training both locally and around the world.

It was BSC’s tools, expertise, and the knowledge acquired over the last 25 years on performance analysis for HPC systems that motivated BSC to initiate and coordinate the POP service-oriented project