Re: [RFC] autonuma: Support to scan page table asynchronously

From: Peter Zijlstra
Date: Wed Apr 15 2020 - 07:33:02 EST


On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 01:06:46PM +0100, Mel Gorman wrote:
> While it's just an opinion, my preference would be to focus on reducing
> the cost and amount of scanning done -- particularly for threads.

This; I really don't believe in those back-charging things, esp. since
not having cgroups or having multiple applications in a single cgroup is
a valid setup.

Another way to reduce latency spikes is to decrease both
sysctl_numa_balancing_scan_delay and sysctl_numa_balancing_scan_size.
Then you do more smaller scans. By scanning more often you reduce the
contrast, by reducing the size you lower the max latency.

And this is all assuming you actually want numa balancing for this
process.