Re: [PATCH 1/6] sched/numa: Stop multiple tasks from moving to the cpu at the same time

[Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>]

* Srikar Dronamraju <srikar@linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:

> Task migration under numa balancing can happen in parallel. More than
> one task might choose to migrate to the same cpu at the same time. This
> can result in
> - During task swap, choosing a task that was not part of the evaluation.
> - During task swap, task which just got moved into its preferred node,
>   moving to a completely different node.
> - During task swap, task failing to move to the preferred node, will have
>   to wait an extra interval for the next migrate opportunity.
> - During task movement, multiple task movements can cause load imbalance.

Please capitalize both 'CPU' and 'NUMA' in changelogs and code comments.

> This problem is more likely if there are more cores per node or more
> nodes in the system.
> 
> Use a per run-queue variable to check if numa-balance is active on the
> run-queue.
> 
> specjbb2005 / bops/JVM / higher bops are better
> on 2 Socket/2 Node Intel
> JVMS  Prev    Current  %Change
> 4     199709  206350   3.32534
> 1     330830  319963   -3.28477
> 
> 
> on 2 Socket/4 Node Power8 (PowerNV)
> JVMS  Prev     Current  %Change
> 8     89011.9  89627.8  0.69193
> 1     218946   211338   -3.47483
> 
> 
> on 2 Socket/2 Node Power9 (PowerNV)
> JVMS  Prev    Current  %Change
> 4     180473  186539   3.36117
> 1     212805  220344   3.54268
> 
> 
> on 4 Socket/4 Node Power7
> JVMS  Prev     Current  %Change
> 8     56941.8  56836    -0.185804
> 1     111686   112970   1.14965
> 
> 
> dbench / transactions / higher numbers are better
> on 2 Socket/2 Node Intel
> count  Min      Max      Avg      Variance  %Change
> 5      12029.8  12124.6  12060.9  34.0076
> 5      13136.1  13170.2  13150.2  14.7482   9.03166
> 
> 
> on 2 Socket/4 Node Power8 (PowerNV)
> count  Min      Max      Avg      Variance  %Change
> 5      4968.51  5006.62  4981.31  13.4151
> 5      4319.79  4998.19  4836.53  261.109   -2.90646
> 
> 
> on 2 Socket/2 Node Power9 (PowerNV)
> count  Min      Max      Avg      Variance  %Change
> 5      9342.92  9381.44  9363.92  12.8587
> 5      9325.56  9402.7   9362.49  25.9638   -0.0152714
> 
> 
> on 4 Socket/4 Node Power7
> count  Min      Max      Avg      Variance  %Change
> 5      143.4    188.892  170.225  16.9929
> 5      132.581  191.072  170.554  21.6444   0.193274

I have applied this patch, but the zero comments benchmark dump is annoying, as the numbers do 
not show unconditional advantages - there's some increases in performance and some regressions. 

In particular this:

> dbench / transactions / higher numbers are better
> on 2 Socket/4 Node Power8 (PowerNV)
> count  Min      Max      Avg      Variance  %Change
> 5      4968.51  5006.62  4981.31  13.4151
> 5      4319.79  4998.19  4836.53  261.109   -2.90646

is concerning: not only did we lose some performance, variance went up by a *lot*. Is this just 
a measurement fluke? We cannot know and you didn't comment.

Thanks,

	Ingo