linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/2] scsi_host: add support for request batching

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Date:   Fri, 31 May 2019 11:12:20 +0200
From:   Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>
To:     Bart Van Assche <bvanassche@....org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        kvm@...r.kernel.org
Cc:     jejb@...ux.ibm.com, martin.petersen@...cle.com,
        linux-scsi@...r.kernel.org, stefanha@...hat.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] scsi_host: add support for request batching

On 30/05/19 19:54, Bart Van Assche wrote:
> As far as I can see the only impact of defining an empty commit_rqs
> callback on the queueing behavior is that blk_mq_make_request() will
> queue requests for multiple hwqs on the plug list instead of requests
> for a single hwq. The plug list is sorted by hwq before it is submitted
> to a block driver. If that helps NVMe performance it should also help
> SCSI performance.

See the comment in blk_mq_make_request(): sorting by hwq helps NVMe
because it uses bd->last, and blk_mq_make_request() uses the presence of
the ->commit_rqs() as a sign that the driver uses bd->last.  The
heuristic basically trades latency (with plugging, the driver rings the
doorbell a bit later) for throughput (ringing the doorbell is slow, so
we want to do it less).  If the driver doesn't use bd->last and the
doorbell is always rung, plugging adds to the latency without the
throughput benefit.

All that the duplicate blk_mq_ops do is letting blk_mq_make_request()
use the same heuristic for SCSI.  This should be beneficial exactly for
the reason that you mention: if the heuristic helps non-SCSI block
driver performance, it should also help performance of SCSI drivers that
have nr_hw_queues > 1 but no commit_rqs (lpfc, qedi, qla2xxx, smartpqi,
storvsc).

Paolo

> How about always setting commit_rqs = scsi_commit_rqs
> in scsi_mq_ops?