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Message-ID: <b373fde3-95a1-4b08-a5f0-f66e3463c298@arm.com>
Date:   Wed, 29 Nov 2023 09:55:33 +0100
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Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] sched/fair: Use all little CPUs for CPU-bound workload
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To:     Pierre Gondois <pierre.gondois@arm.com>,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc:     Qais Yousef <qyousef@layalina.io>,
        Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot@linaro.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
        Juri Lelli <juri.lelli@redhat.com>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
        Ben Segall <bsegall@google.com>, Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>,
        Daniel Bristot de Oliveira <bristot@redhat.com>,
        Valentin Schneider <vschneid@redhat.com>
References: <20231124153323.3202444-1-pierre.gondois@arm.com>
From:   Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann@arm.com>
In-Reply-To: <20231124153323.3202444-1-pierre.gondois@arm.com>
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On 24/11/2023 16:33, Pierre Gondois wrote:
> Running n CPU-bound tasks on an n CPUs platform:
> - with asymmetric CPU capacity
> - not having SD_SHARE_PKG_RESOURCES flag set at the DIE

nit: DIE is now called PKG on tip sched/core.

f577cd57bfaa - sched/topology: Rename 'DIE' domain to 'PKG' (2023-10-12
Peter Zijlstra)

>   sched domain level (i.e. not DynamIQ systems)
> might result in a task placement where two tasks run on a big CPU
> and none on a little CPU. This placement could be more optimal by
> using all CPUs.
> 
> Testing platform:
> Juno-r2:
> - 2 big CPUs (1-2), maximum capacity of 1024
> - 4 little CPUs (0,3-5), maximum capacity of 383
> 
> Testing workload ([1]):
> Spawn 6 CPU-bound tasks. During the first 100ms (step 1), each tasks
> is affine to a CPU, except for:
> - one little CPU which is left idle.
> - one big CPU which has 2 tasks affine.
> After the 100ms (step 2), remove the cpumask affinity.
> 
> Before patch:
> During step 2, the load balancer running from the idle CPU tags sched
> domains as:
> - little CPUs: 'group_has_spare'. Indeed, 3 CPU-bound tasks run on a
>   4 CPUs sched-domain, and the idle CPU provides enough spare
>   capacity.

What is meant by 'idle CPU provides enough spare capacity? I thought the
task (util_avg ~ 512_ does not fit on the sched group [1,3-5] when we
consider util_avg/capacity (383)

The calculated imbalance of ~350 is too small for the task-size and
that's why we need the 'shr_bound(util, env->sd->nr_balance_failed)' to
let the task load-balance if nr_balance_failed = 2?

[...]

> Similar issue reported at:
> https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20230716014125.139577-1-qyousef@layalina.io/
> 
> v1:
> https://lore.kernel.org/all/20231110125902.2152380-1-pierre.gondois@arm.com/
> 
> Suggested-by: Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot@linaro.org>
> Signed-off-by: Pierre Gondois <pierre.gondois@arm.com>

Even though this cures only classical big.LITTLE it might have a
positive effect on today's Arm DynamIQ Android systems with Phantom SDs
when running benchmarks like Geekbench.

[...]

Reviewed-by: Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann@arm.com>