Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261909AbTIEBfm (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 Sep 2003 21:35:42 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261945AbTIEBfm (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 Sep 2003 21:35:42 -0400 Received: from mail.inter-page.com ([12.5.23.93]:8204 "EHLO mail.inter-page.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261909AbTIEBfQ convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 Sep 2003 21:35:16 -0400 From: "Robert White" To: "'William Lee Irwin III'" , "'Larry McVoy'" , "'Brown, Len'" , "'Giuliano Pochini'" , "'Larry McVoy'" , Subject: RE: Scaling noise Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 18:34:25 -0700 Organization: Casabyte, Inc. Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.4510 In-Reply-To: <20030903181550.GR4306@holomorphy.com> Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 5337 Lines: 123 Not to throw a flag on the play but... Larry asks why penalize low end systems by making the kernel many-cpu-friendly. The implicit postulate in his question is that the current design path is "unfair" to the single and very-small-N N-way systems in favor of the larger-N and very-large-N niche user base. Lots of discussions then ensue about high end scalability and the performance penalties of doing memory barriers and atomic actions for large numbers of CPUs. I'm not sure I get it. The large-end dynamics don't seem to apply to the question, in support nor rebut. Is there any concrete evidence to support the inference? What really is the impact of high-end scalability issues on the low end machines? It *seems* that the high-end diminishing returns due to having any one CPU's cache invalidated by N companions is clearly decoupled from the uni-processor model because there are no "other" CPUs to cause the bulk of such invalidations when there is only one processor. It *seems* that in a single-kernel architecture, as soon as you reach "more than one CPU" what "must be shared" ...er... must be shared. It *seems* that what is unique to each CPU (the instances CPU private data structure) are wholly unlikely to be faulted out because of the actions of other CPUs. (that *is* part of why they are in separate spaces, right?) It *seems* that the high-end degradation of cache performance as N increases is coupled singularly to the increase in N and the follow-on multi-state competition for resources. (That is, it is the real presence of the 64 CPUs and not the code to accommodate them is the cause of the invalidations. If, on my 2-way box I set the MAX_CPU_COUNT to 8 or 64, the only difference in runtime is the unused memory for the 6 or 62 per-cpu-data structures. The cache-invalidation and memory-barrier cost is bounded by the two real CPUs and not the 62 empty slots.) It *seems* that any attempt to make a large N system cache friendly would involve preventing as many invalidations as possible. And finally, it *seems* that any large-N design, e.g. one that keeps cache invalidation to a minimum, would, by definition, directly *benefit* the small N systems because they would naturally also have less invalidation. That is, "change a pointer, flush a cache" is true for all N greater than 1, yes? So if I share between 2 or 1000, it is the actions of the 2 or 1000 at runtime that exact the cost. Any design to better accommodate "up to 1000" will naturally tend to better accommodate "up to 4". So... What/where, if any, are the examples of something being written (or some technique being propounded) in the current kernel design that "penalizes" a 2-by or 4-by box in the name of making a 64-by or 128-by machine perform better? Clearly keeping more private data private is "better" and "worse" for its respective reasons in a memory-footprint for cache-separation tradeoff, but that is true for all N >= 2. Is there some concrete example(s) of SMP code that is wrought overlarge? I mean all values of N between 1 and 255 fit in one byte (duh 8-) but cache invalidations happen in more than two bytes, so having some MAX_CPU_COUNT bounded at 65535 is only one byte more expansive and no-bytes more expensive in the cache-consistency-conflict space. At runtime, any loop that iterates across the number of active CPUs will be clamped at the actual number, and not the theoretical max. I suspect that the original question is specious and generally presumes facts not in evidence. Of course, just because *I* cannot immediately conceive of any useful optimization for a 128-way machine that is inherently detrimental to a 2-way or 4-way box, doesn't mean that no such optimization exists. Someone enlighten me please. Rob White -----Original Message----- From: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of William Lee Irwin III Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 11:16 AM To: Larry McVoy; Brown, Len; Giuliano Pochini; Larry McVoy; linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Scaling noise At some point in the past, I wrote: >> The lines of reasoning presented against tightly coupled systems are >> grossly flawed. On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 11:05:47AM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote: > [etc]. > Only problem with your statements is that IBM has already implemented all > of the required features in VM. And multiple Linux instances are running > on it today, with shared disks underneath so they don't replicate all the > stuff that doesn't need to be replicated, and they have shared memory > across instances. Independent operating system instances running under a hypervisor don't qualify as a cache-coherent cluster that I can tell; it's merely dynamic partitioning, which is great, but nothing to do with clustering or SMP. -- wli - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/