Re: RFC: Memory Tiering Kernel Interfaces (v2)

[Aneesh Kumar K V <aneesh.kumar@linux.ibm.com>]

On 5/25/22 10:57 PM, Wei Xu wrote:
> On Wed, May 25, 2022 at 3:01 AM Aneesh Kumar K V
> <aneesh.kumar@linux.ibm.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 5/25/22 2:33 PM, Ying Huang wrote:
>>> On Tue, 2022-05-24 at 22:32 -0700, Wei Xu wrote:
>>>> On Tue, May 24, 2022 at 1:24 AM Ying Huang <ying.huang@intel.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, 2022-05-24 at 00:04 -0700, Wei Xu wrote:
>>>>>> On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 8:06 PM Ying Huang <ying.huang@intel.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>
>> ...
>>
>>>
>>> OK.  Just to confirm.  Does this mean that we will have fixed device ID,
>>> for example,
>>>
>>> GPU                   memtier255
>>> DRAM (with CPU)               memtier0
>>> PMEM                  memtier1
>>>
>>> When we add a new memtier, it can be memtier254, or memter2?  The rank
>>> value will determine the real demotion order.
>>>
>>> I think you may need to send v3 to make sure everyone is at the same
>>> page.
>>>
>>
>> What we have implemented which we will send as RFC shortly is below.
>>
>> cd /sys/dekvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:~$ cd /sys/devices/system/
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system$ pwd
>> /sys/devices/system
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system$ ls
>> clockevents  clocksource  container  cpu  edac  memory  memtier  mpic
>> node  power
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system$ cd memtier/
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/memtier$ pwd
>> /sys/devices/system/memtier
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/memtier$ ls
>> default_rank  max_rank  memtier1  power  uevent
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/memtier$ cat default_rank
>> 1
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/memtier$ cat max_rank
>> 3
> 
> For flexibility, we don't want max_rank to be interpreted as the
> number of memory tiers.  Also, we want to leave spaces in rank values
> to allow new memtiers to be inserted when needed.  So I'd suggest to
> make max_rank a much larger value (e.g. 255).
> 
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/memtier$ cd memtier1/
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1$ ls
>> nodelist  power  rank  subsystem  uevent
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1$ cat nodelist
>> 0-3
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1$ cat rank
>> 1
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier1$ cd
>> ../../node/node1/
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/node/node1$ cat memtier
>> 1
>> kvaneesh@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/node/node1$
>> root@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/node/node1# echo 0 > memtier
>> root@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/node/node1# cat memtier
>> 0
>> root@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/node/node1# cd ../../memtier/
>> root@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/memtier# ls
>> default_rank  max_rank  memtier0  memtier1  power  uevent
>> root@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/memtier# cd memtier0/
>> root@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier0# cat nodelist
>> 1
>> root@ubuntu-guest:/sys/devices/system/memtier/memtier0# cat rank
>> 0
> 
> It looks like the example here demonstrates the dynamic creation of
> memtier0.  If so, how is the rank of memtier0 determined?  If we want
> to support creating new memtiers at runtime, I think an explicit
> interface that specifies both device ID and rank is preferred to avoid
> implicit dependencies between device IDs and ranks.
> 

Right now to keep it all simpler there is a 1:1 relation ship between 
memory tier and rank value. ie.

memory tier  rank
memtier0     100
memtier1     200
memtier2     300

Currently we are limiting this to max 3 tiers. Hence the above is very 
easy. Once we really get dynamic tier creation, we should be looking at 
creating a new memory tier with highest possible rank value. Once we 
establish the memory tier, we then modify the rank value to a desired 
value. There will be a kernel interface to add a node to a memory tier 
with specific rank value so drivers can do that if required.

I haven't gone to that implementation because i was hoping we could get 
to that later when we really start requiring dynamic tier support.

I will share the patch series we have been working with. I am yet to get 
the documentation added. But then i will not wait for it to be complete 
so that we can get some early testing/feedback.

-aneesh