Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 22:28:42 +0900
From: Yasunori Goto <y-goto@jp.fujitsu.com>
To: Mel Gorman <mel@csn.ul.ie>
Subject: Re: [Lhms-devel] Re: [PATCH 0/5] Reducing fragmentation using zones
Cc: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>,
       Joel Schopp <jschopp@austin.ibm.com>, linux-mm@kvack.org,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, lhms-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
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References: <43D03A48.8090105@jp.fujitsu.com> <Pine.LNX.4.58.0601201154320.14292@skynet>
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> > > So, in terms of performance on this set of tests, both approachs perform
> > > roughly the same as the stock kernel in terms of absolute performance. In
> > > terms of high-order allocations, zone-based appears to do better under
> > > load. However, if you look at the zones that are used, you will see that
> > > zone-based appears to do as well as list-based *only* because it has the
> > > EASYRCLM zone to play with. list-based was way better at keeping the
> > > normal zone defragmented as well as highmem which is especially obvious
> > > when tested at rest.  list-based was able to allocate 83 huge pages from
> > > ZONE_NORMAL at rest while zone-based only managed 8.
> > >
> > yes, this is intersiting point :)
> > list-based one can defrag NORMAL zone.
> > The point will be "does we need to defrag NORMAL ?" , I think.
> 
> The original intention was two fold. One, it helps HugeTLB in situations
> where it was not configured correctly at boot-time. this is the case for a
> number of sites running HPC-related jobs. The second objective was to help
> high-order kernel allocations to potentially reduce things like
> scatter-gather IO.

Probably, Linus-san's wish is reduce high order kernel allocation
to avoid fragment. (Did he say defragment is meaningless, right?)
If there is a driver/kernel component which require high order
allocation though physical contiguous memory is not necessary,
it should be modified to collect pieces of pages.
(I guess there is some component like it. But I'm not sure....)
If the scatter-gather IO is cause of bad performance,
it might be desirable that trying highorder allocation at first,
then collect peace of pages which can be allocated. 

It is just my guess.
But, some of components might not be able to do it.
If there are impossible components, it is good reason for
defragment....

> > > On the flip side, zone-based code changes are easier to understand than
> > > the list-based ones (at least in terms of volume of code changes). The
> > > zone-based gives guarantees on what will happen in the future while
> > > list-based is best-effort.
> > >
> > > In terms of fragmentation, I still think that list-based is better overall
> > > without configuration.
> > I agree here.
> >
> > > The results above also represent the best possible
> > > configuration with zone-based versus no configuration at all against
> > > list-based. In an environment with changing workloads a constant reality,
> > > I bet that list-based would win overall.
> > >
> > On x86, NORMAL is only 896M anyway. there is no discussion.
> >
> 
> There is a discussion with architecutes like ppc64 which do not have a
> normal zone (only ZONE_DMA) and 64 bit architectures that have very large
> normal zones.
> 
> Take ppc64 as an example. Today, when memory is hot-added, it is available
> for use by the kernel and userspace applications. Right now, hot-added
> memory goes to ZONE_DMA but it should be going to ZONE_EASYRCLM. In this
> case, the size of the kernel at the beginning is fixed. If you allow the
> kernel zone to grow, it cannot be shrunk again and worse, if the kernel
> expands to take up available memory, it loses all advantages.

Just for correction, ZONE_EASYRCLM is useful only hot-remove.
So, if kernel would like to have more memory, hot-add of ZONE_DMA(If its
address is in DMA area) Zone_NORMAL should be OK.
Only the new memory will not be able to be removed.

Thanks.

-- 
Yasunori Goto 


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