linux-kernel - Re: performance drop after using blkcg

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Date:	Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:47:18 -0800
From:	Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>
To:	Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@...hat.com>
Cc:	Zhao Shuai <zhaoshuai@...ebsd.org>, axboe@...nel.dk,
	ctalbott@...gle.com, rni@...gle.com, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	cgroups@...r.kernel.org, containers@...ts.linux-foundation.org
Subject: Re: performance drop after using blkcg

Hello,

On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 09:43:36AM -0500, Vivek Goyal wrote:
> I think if one sets slice_idle=0 and group_idle=0 in CFQ, for all practical
> purposes it should become and IOPS based group scheduling.

No, I don't think it is.  You can't achieve isolation without idling
between group switches.  We're measuring slices in terms of iops but
what cfq actually schedules are still time slices, not IOs.

> For group accounting then CFQ uses number of requests from each cgroup
> and uses that information to schedule groups.
> 
> I have not been able to figure out the practical benefits of that
> approach. At least not for the simple workloads I played with. This
> approach will not work for simple things like trying to improve dependent
> read latencies in presence of heavery writers. That's the single biggest
> use case CFQ solves, IMO.

As I wrote above, it's not about accounting.  It's about scheduling
unit.

> And that happens because we stop writes and don't let them go to device
> and device is primarily dealing with reads. If some process is doing
> dependent reads and we want to improve read latencies, then either
> we need to stop flow of writes or devices are good and they always
> prioritize READs over WRITEs. If devices are good then we probably
> don't even need blkcg.
> 
> So yes, iops based appraoch is fine just that number of cases where you
> will see any service differentiation should significantly less.

No, using iops to schedule time slices would lead to that.  We just
need to be allocating and scheduling iops, and I don't think we should
be doing that from cfq.

Thanks.

-- 
tejun
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