From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932095AbWKCUql (ORCPT ); Fri, 3 Nov 2006 15:46:41 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753529AbWKCUql (ORCPT ); Fri, 3 Nov 2006 15:46:41 -0500 Received: from omx1-ext.sgi.com ([192.48.179.11]:57013 "EHLO omx1.americas.sgi.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753528AbWKCUql (ORCPT ); Fri, 3 Nov 2006 15:46:41 -0500 Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2006 12:46:36 -0800 (PST) From: Christoph Lameter To: akpm@osdl.org Cc: Christoph Lameter , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Message-Id: <20061103204636.15739.74831.sendpatchset@schroedinger.engr.sgi.com> Subject: [PATCH 0/7] sched_domain balancing via tasklet V3 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org This patchset moves potentially expensive load balancing out of the scheduler tick (where we run with interrupts disabled) into a tasklet that is triggered if necessary from scheduler_tick(). Load balancing will then run with interrupts enabled. This eliminates interrupt holdoff times and avoids potential machine livelock if f.e. load balancing is performed over a large number of processors and many of the nodes experience heavy load which may lead to delays in fetching cachelines. We have currently up to 1024 processors and may go up to 4096 soon. Similar issues were seen on a Fujitsu system in the past. However, this issue also highlights the general problem of interrupt holdoff during scheduler load balancing. The moving of the load balancing into a tasklet also allows some cleanup in scheduler_tick(). It gets easier to read and the determination of the state for load balancing can be moved out of scheduler_tick(). Further optimization of scheduler_tick() processing occurs because we no longer check all the sched domains on each tick. We determine the time of the next load balancing on every load balancing and check against this single value in scheduler_tick(). Another optimization is that we perform the staggering of the individual load balance operations not during load balancing but shift that to the setup of the sched domains. For the earlier discussion see: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=116119187800002&r=1&w=2 V1: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=116171494001548&w=2 V2: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=116200355408187&w=2 V1-V2: - Keep last_balance and calculate the next balancing from that start point. - Move more code into time_slice calculation and rename time_slice() to task_running_tick(). - Separate out the wake_priority_sleeper optimization as a first patch. V2->V3 - Rediff against 2.6.19-rc4-mm2 - Remove useless check for rq->idle in rebalance_domains()