Re: [RFC 0/3] block: proportional based blk-throttling

[Shaohua Li]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 04:11:00PM -0500, Vivek Goyal wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 11:43:27AM -0800, Shaohua Li wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 02:40:13PM -0500, Vivek Goyal wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 11:34:48AM -0800, Shaohua Li wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 02:05:35PM -0500, Vivek Goyal wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 09:49:16AM -0800, Shaohua Li wrote:
> > > > > > Hi,
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Currently we have 2 iocontrollers. blk-throttling is bandwidth based. CFQ is
> > > > > > weight based. It would be great there is a unified iocontroller for the two.
> > > > > > And blk-mq doesn't support ioscheduler, leaving blk-throttling the only option
> > > > > > for blk-mq. It's time to have a scalable iocontroller supporting both
> > > > > > bandwidth/weight based control and working with blk-mq.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > blk-throttling is a good candidate, it works for both blk-mq and legacy queue.
> > > > > > It has a global lock which is scaring for scalability, but it's not terrible in
> > > > > > practice. In my test, the NVMe IOPS can reach 1M/s and I have all CPU run IO. Enabling
> > > > > > blk-throttle has around 2~3% IOPS and 10% cpu utilization impact. I'd expect
> > > > > > this isn't a big problem for today's workload. This patchset then try to make a
> > > > > > unified iocontroller. I'm leveraging blk-throttling.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > The idea is pretty simple. If we know disk total bandwidth, we can calculate
> > > > > > cgroup bandwidth according to its weight. blk-throttling can use the calculated
> > > > > > bandwidth to throttle cgroup. Disk total bandwidth changes dramatically per IO
> > > > > > pattern. Long history is meaningless. The simple algorithm in patch 1 works
> > > > > > pretty well when IO pattern changes.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > This is a feedback system. If we underestimate disk total bandwidth, we assign
> > > > > > less bandwidth to cgroup. cgroup will dispatch less IO and finally lower disk
> > > > > > total bandwidth is estimated. To break the loop, cgroup bandwidth calculation
> > > > > > always uses (1 + 1/8) * disk_bandwidth. Another issue is cgroup could be
> > > > > > inactive. If inactive cgroup is accounted in, other cgroup will be assigned
> > > > > > less bandwidth and so dispatch less IO, and disk total bandwidth drops further.
> > > > > > To avoid the issue, we periodically check cgroups and exclude inactive ones.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > To test this, create two fio jobs and assign them different weight. You will
> > > > > > see the jobs have different bandwidth roughly according to their weight.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Patches look pretty small. Nice to see an implementation which will work
> > > > > with faster devices and get away from dependency on cfq.
> > > > > 
> > > > > How does one switch between weight based vs bandwidth based throttling?
> > > > > What's the default. 
> > > > > 
> > > > > So this has been implemented at throttling layer. By default is weight 
> > > > > based throttling enabled or one needs to enable it explicitly.
> > > > 
> > > > So in current implementation, only one of weight/bandwidth can be
> > > > enabled. After one is enabled, switching to the other is forbidden. It
> > > > should not be hard to enable switching. But mixing the two in one
> > > > hierarchy sounds not trivial.
> > > 
> > > So is this selection per device? Would be good if you also provide steps
> > > to test it. I am going through code now and will figure out ultimately,
> > > just that if you give steps, it makes it little easier.
> > 
> > Just uses:
> > echo "8:16 200" > $TEST_CG/blkio.throttle.weight
> > 
> > 200 is the weight
> > 
> 
> It would be nice if you also update the documentation. What are the max
> and min for weight values. What does it mean if a group has weight 200.
> While others have not been configured. What % of disk share this cgroup
> will get.
> 
> I am still wrapping my head around the patches but it looks like this is
> another way of coming up automatically with bandwidth limit for a cgroup
> based on weight. So user does not have to configure absolute values 
> for read/write bandwidth. They can configure the weight and that will 
> automatically control the bandwidth of cgroup dynamically.
> 
> What I am not clear is that once I apply weight on one cgroup, what happes
> to rest of peer cgroups which are still not configured. If I don't apply
> rules to them, then adding weight to one cgroup does not mean much. 
> 
> Ideally, I might help that we assign default weights to cgroup and have
> a per device switch to enable weight based controller. That way user
> space can enable it per device as needed and all the cgroup get their
> fair share without any extra configuration. If the overhead of this
> mechanism is ultra low, then a global switch to enable it by default
> for all devices should be useful too. That way user space has to toggle
> just that switch and by default all IO cgroups on all block devices get
> their fair share.

I haven't thought about the interface too much yet. This version mainly
demonstrates the idea. Your suggestions look reasonable. A single
control to enable weight/bandwidth with proper default setting is
convenient. Will add it in next post.

Thanks,
Shaohua