Re: [PATCH v3 09/22] sched: compute runnable load avg in cpu_load and cpu_avg_load_per_task

[Alex Shi <alex.shi@intel.com>]

On 01/11/2013 02:31 PM, Alex Shi wrote:
> On 01/07/2013 02:31 AM, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>> On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 11:54 PM, Alex Shi <alex.shi@intel.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I just looked into the aim9 benchmark, in this case it forks 2000 tasks,
>>> after all tasks ready, aim9 give a signal than all tasks burst waking up
>>> and run until all finished.
>>> Since each of tasks are finished very quickly, a imbalanced empty cpu
>>> may goes to sleep till a regular balancing give it some new tasks. That
>>> causes the performance dropping. cause more idle entering.
>>
>> Sounds like for AIM (and possibly for other really bursty loads), we
>> might want to do some load-balancing at wakeup time by *just* looking
>> at the number of running tasks, rather than at the load average. Hmm?
>>
>> The load average is fundamentally always going to run behind a bit,
>> and while you want to use it for long-term balancing, a short-term you
>> might want to do just a "if we have a huge amount of runnable
>> processes, do a load balancing *now*". Where "huge amount" should
>> probably be relative to the long-term load balancing (ie comparing the
>> number of runnable processes on this CPU right *now* with the load
>> average over the last second or so would show a clear spike, and a
>> reason for quick action).
>>
> 
> Sorry for response late!
> 
> Just written a patch following your suggestion, but no clear improvement for this case.
> I also tried change the burst checking interval, also no clear help.
> 
> If I totally give up runnable load in periodic balancing, the performance can recover 60%
> of lose.
> 
> I will try to optimize wake up balancing in weekend.
> 

(btw, the time for runnable avg to accumulate to 100%, needs 345ms; to
50% needs 32 ms)

I have tried some tuning in both wake up balancing and regular
balancing. Yes, when using instant load weight (without runnable avg
engage), both in waking up, and regular balance, the performance recovered.

But with per_cpu nr_running tracking, it's hard to find a elegant way to
detect the burst whenever in waking up or in regular balance.
In waking up, the whole sd_llc domain cpus are candidates, so just
checking this_cpu is not enough.
In regular balance, this_cpu is the migration destination cpu, checking
if the burst on the cpu is not useful. Instead, we need to check whole
domains' increased task number.

So, guess 2 solutions for this issue.
1, for quick waking up, we need use instant load(same as current
balancing) to do balance; and for regular balance, we can record both
instant load and runnable load data for whole domain, then decide which
one to use according to task number increasing in the domain after
tracking done the whole domain.

2, we can keep current instant load balancing as performance balance
policy, and using runnable load balancing in power friend policy.
Since, none of us find performance benefit with runnable load balancing
on benchmark hackbench/kbuild/aim9/tbench/specjbb etc.
I prefer the 2nd.

What's your opinions of this?

Best regards
Alex