Re: UDP-U stream performance regression on 32-rc1 kernel

[Mike Galbraith <efault@gmx.de>]

On Wed, 2009-11-04 at 09:55 +0800, Zhang, Yanmin wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-11-03 at 18:45 +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > * Zhang, Yanmin <yanmin_zhang@linux.intel.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Tue, 2009-11-03 at 11:47 +0800, Alex Shi wrote:
> > > > We found the UDP-U 1k/4k stream of netperf benchmark have some
> > > > performance regression from 10% to 20% on our Tulsa and some NHM
> > > > machines. 
> > >  perf events shows function find_busiest_group consumes about 4.5% cpu 
> > > time with the patch while it only consumes 0.5% cpu time without the 
> > > patch.
> > > 
> > > The communication between netperf client and netserver is very fast. 
> > > When netserver receives a message and there is no new message 
> > > available, it goes to sleep and scheduler calls idle_balance => 
> > > load_balance_newidle. load_balance_newidle spends too much time and a 
> > > new message arrives quickly before load_balance_newidle ends.
> > > 
> > > As the comments in the patch say hackbench benefits from it, I tested 
> > > hackbench on Nehalem and core2 machines. hackbench does benefit from 
> > > it, about 6% on nehalem machines, but doesn't benefit on core2 
> > > machines.
> > 
> > Can you confirm that -tip:
> > 
> >   http://people.redhat.com/mingo/tip.git/README
> > 
> > has it fixed (or at least improved)?
> The latest tips improves netperf loopback result, but doesn't fix it
> thoroughly. For example, on a Nehalem machine, netperf UDP-U-1k has
> about 25% regression, but with the tips kernel, the regression becomes
> less than 10%.

Can you try the below, and send me your UDP-U-1k args so I can try it?  

The below shows promise for stopping newidle from harming cache, though
it needs to be more clever than a holdoff.  The fact that it only harms
the _very_ sensitive to idle time x264 testcase by 5% shows some
promise.

tip v2.6.32-rc6-1731-gc5bb4b1
tbench 8                                1044.66 MB/sec 8 procs
x264 8                                  366.58 frames/sec -start_debit 392.24 fps -newidle 215.34 fps

tip+ v2.6.32-rc6-1731-gc5bb4b1
tbench 8                                1040.08 MB/sec 8 procs .995
x264 8                                  350.23 frames/sec -start_debit 371.76
                                          .955                           .947

mysql+oltp
clients             1          2          4          8         16         32         64        128        256
tip          10447.14   19734.58   36038.18   35776.85   34662.76   33682.30   32256.22   28770.99   25323.23
             10462.61   19580.14   36050.48   35942.63   35054.84   33988.40   32423.89   29259.65   25892.24
             10501.02   19231.27   36007.03   35985.32   35060.79   33945.47   32400.42   29140.84   25716.16
tip avg      10470.25   19515.33   36031.89   35901.60   34926.13   33872.05   32360.17   29057.16   25643.87

tip+         10594.32   19912.01   36320.45   35904.71   35100.37   34003.38   32453.04   28413.57   23871.22
             10667.96   20000.17   36533.72   36472.19   35371.35   34208.85   32617.80   28893.55   24499.34
             10463.25   19915.69   36657.20   36419.08   35403.15   34041.80   32612.94   28835.82   24323.52
tip+ avg     10575.17   19942.62   36503.79   36265.32   35291.62   34084.67   32561.26   28714.31   24231.36
                1.010      1.021      1.013      1.010      1.010      1.006      1.006       .988       .944


---
 kernel/sched.c |    9 +++++++++
 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+)

Index: linux-2.6/kernel/sched.c
===================================================================
--- linux-2.6.orig/kernel/sched.c
+++ linux-2.6/kernel/sched.c
@@ -590,6 +590,7 @@ struct rq {
 
 	u64 rt_avg;
 	u64 age_stamp;
+	u64 newidle_ratelimit;
 #endif
 
 	/* calc_load related fields */
@@ -2383,6 +2384,8 @@ static int try_to_wake_up(struct task_st
 	if (rq != orig_rq)
 		update_rq_clock(rq);
 
+	rq->newidle_ratelimit = rq->clock;
+
 	WARN_ON(p->state != TASK_WAKING);
 	cpu = task_cpu(p);
 
@@ -4427,6 +4430,12 @@ static void idle_balance(int this_cpu, s
 	struct sched_domain *sd;
 	int pulled_task = 0;
 	unsigned long next_balance = jiffies + HZ;
+	u64 delta = this_rq->clock - this_rq->newidle_ratelimit;
+
+	if (delta < sysctl_sched_migration_cost)
+		return;
+
+	this_rq->newidle_ratelimit = this_rq->clock;
 
 	for_each_domain(this_cpu, sd) {
 		unsigned long interval;