Re: [PATCH 0/2] Introduce SIS_CACHE to choose previous CPU during task wakeup

[Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>]

* Chen Yu <yu.c.chen@intel.com> wrote:

> When task p is woken up, the scheduler leverages select_idle_sibling()
> to find an idle CPU for it. p's previous CPU is usually a preference
> because it can improve cache locality. However in many cases, the
> previous CPU has already been taken by other wakees, thus p has to
> find another idle CPU.
> 
> Inhibit the task migration while keeping the work conservation of
> scheduler could benefit many workloads. Inspired by Mathieu's
> proposal to limit the task migration ratio[1], this patch considers
> the task average sleep duration. If the task is a short sleeping one,
> then tag its previous CPU as cache hot for a short while. During this
> reservation period, other wakees are not allowed to pick this idle CPU
> until a timeout. Later if the task is woken up again, it can find its
> previous CPU still idle, and choose it in select_idle_sibling().

Yeah, so I'm not convinced about this at this stage.

By allowing a task to basically hog a CPU after it has gone idle already,
however briefly, we reduce resource utilization efficiency for the sake
of singular benchmark workloads.

In a mixed environment the cost of leaving CPUs idle longer than necessary
will show up - and none of these benchmarks show that kind of side effect
and indirect overhead.

This feature would be a lot more convincing if it tried to measure overhead
in the pathological case, not the case it's been written for.

Thanks,

	Ingo