Re: [PATCH 3/4] sched/numa: Stop comparing tasks for NUMA placement after selecting an idle core

[Srikar Dronamraju]

* Mel Gorman <mgorman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> [2018-09-07 11:11:38]:

> task_numa_migrate is responsible for finding a core on a preferred NUMA
> node for a task. As part of this, task_numa_find_cpu iterates through
> the CPUs of a node and evaulates CPUs, both idle and with running tasks,
> as placement candidates. Generally though, any idle CPU is equivalent in
> terms of improving imbalances and a search after finding one is pointless.
> This patch stops examining CPUs on a node if an idle CPU is considered
> suitable.
> 

However there can be a thread on the destination node that might benefit
from swapping with the current thread. Don't we loose that opportunity to
swap if skip checking for other threads?

To articulate.
Thread A currently running on node 0 wants to move to node 1.
Thread B currently running on node 1 is better of if it ran on node 0.

Thread A seems idle cpu before seeing Thread B; skips and looses
an opportunity to swap.

Eventually thread B will get an opportunity to move to node 0, when thread B
calls task_numa_placement but we are probably stopping it from achieving
earlier.

-- 
Thanks and Regards
Srikar Dronamraju