Re: [RFC][PATCH 5/8] RSS controller task migration support

From: Balbir Singh
Date: Tue Nov 21 2006 - 06:08:15 EST


Patrick.Le-Dot wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 22:04:08 +0530
>> ...
>> I am not against guarantees, but
>>
>> Consider the following scenario, let's say we implement guarantees
>>
>> 1. If we account for kernel resources, how do you provide guarantees
>> when you have non-reclaimable resources?
>
> First, the current patch is based only on pages available in the
> struct mm.
> I doubt that these pages are "non-reclaimable"...

I am speaking of a scenario when we start supporting kernel accounting
and of-course the swapless case.

>
> And guarantee should be ignored just because some kernel resources
> are marked "non-reclaimable" ?
>

Ok.. but can you have a consistent guarantee definition with un-reclaimable
kernel resources? How do you define a guarantee in a consistent manner?
In my discussions earlier on lkml, I had suggested that we define guarantee
only for reclaimable resources and provide support only for them.

>
>> 2. If a customer runs a system with swap turned off (which is quite
>> common),
>
> quite common, really ?

Yep, I was listening to a talk from a customer service expert and he
mentioned that it's used to boost performance.

>
>> then anonymous memory becomes irreclaimable. If a group
>> takes more than it's fair share (exceeds its guarantee), you
>> have scenario similar to 1 above.
>
> That seems to be just a subset of the "guarantee+limit" model : if
> guarantee is not useful for you, don't use it.
>
> I'm not saying that guarantee should be a magic piece of code working
> for everybody.
>
> But we have to propose something for the customers who ask for a
> guarantee (ie using a system with swap turned on like me and this is
> quite common:-)
>

Like I said I am not against guarantees, but do we have to implement
them in our first iteration?


> Patrick
>


--

Balbir Singh,
Linux Technology Center,
IBM Software Labs
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