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Commit e9c84cb8 authored by Peter Zijlstra's avatar Peter Zijlstra Committed by Ingo Molnar
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sched: Describe CFS load-balancer



Add some scribbles on how and why the load-balancer works..

Signed-off-by: default avatarPeter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1341316406.23484.64.camel@twins


Signed-off-by: default avatarIngo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
parent f4e26b12
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+116 −2
Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -3456,7 +3456,121 @@ static bool yield_to_task_fair(struct rq *rq, struct task_struct *p, bool preemp

#ifdef CONFIG_SMP
/**************************************************
 * Fair scheduling class load-balancing methods:
 * Fair scheduling class load-balancing methods.
 *
 * BASICS
 *
 * The purpose of load-balancing is to achieve the same basic fairness the
 * per-cpu scheduler provides, namely provide a proportional amount of compute
 * time to each task. This is expressed in the following equation:
 *
 *   W_i,n/P_i == W_j,n/P_j for all i,j                               (1)
 *
 * Where W_i,n is the n-th weight average for cpu i. The instantaneous weight
 * W_i,0 is defined as:
 *
 *   W_i,0 = \Sum_j w_i,j                                             (2)
 *
 * Where w_i,j is the weight of the j-th runnable task on cpu i. This weight
 * is derived from the nice value as per prio_to_weight[].
 *
 * The weight average is an exponential decay average of the instantaneous
 * weight:
 *
 *   W'_i,n = (2^n - 1) / 2^n * W_i,n + 1 / 2^n * W_i,0               (3)
 *
 * P_i is the cpu power (or compute capacity) of cpu i, typically it is the
 * fraction of 'recent' time available for SCHED_OTHER task execution. But it
 * can also include other factors [XXX].
 *
 * To achieve this balance we define a measure of imbalance which follows
 * directly from (1):
 *
 *   imb_i,j = max{ avg(W/P), W_i/P_i } - min{ avg(W/P), W_j/P_j }    (4)
 *
 * We them move tasks around to minimize the imbalance. In the continuous
 * function space it is obvious this converges, in the discrete case we get
 * a few fun cases generally called infeasible weight scenarios.
 *
 * [XXX expand on:
 *     - infeasible weights;
 *     - local vs global optima in the discrete case. ]
 *
 *
 * SCHED DOMAINS
 *
 * In order to solve the imbalance equation (4), and avoid the obvious O(n^2)
 * for all i,j solution, we create a tree of cpus that follows the hardware
 * topology where each level pairs two lower groups (or better). This results
 * in O(log n) layers. Furthermore we reduce the number of cpus going up the
 * tree to only the first of the previous level and we decrease the frequency
 * of load-balance at each level inv. proportional to the number of cpus in
 * the groups.
 *
 * This yields:
 *
 *     log_2 n     1     n
 *   \Sum       { --- * --- * 2^i } = O(n)                            (5)
 *     i = 0      2^i   2^i
 *                               `- size of each group
 *         |         |     `- number of cpus doing load-balance
 *         |         `- freq
 *         `- sum over all levels
 *
 * Coupled with a limit on how many tasks we can migrate every balance pass,
 * this makes (5) the runtime complexity of the balancer.
 *
 * An important property here is that each CPU is still (indirectly) connected
 * to every other cpu in at most O(log n) steps:
 *
 * The adjacency matrix of the resulting graph is given by:
 *
 *             log_2 n     
 *   A_i,j = \Union     (i % 2^k == 0) && i / 2^(k+1) == j / 2^(k+1)  (6)
 *             k = 0
 *
 * And you'll find that:
 *
 *   A^(log_2 n)_i,j != 0  for all i,j                                (7)
 *
 * Showing there's indeed a path between every cpu in at most O(log n) steps.
 * The task movement gives a factor of O(m), giving a convergence complexity
 * of:
 *
 *   O(nm log n),  n := nr_cpus, m := nr_tasks                        (8)
 *
 *
 * WORK CONSERVING
 *
 * In order to avoid CPUs going idle while there's still work to do, new idle
 * balancing is more aggressive and has the newly idle cpu iterate up the domain
 * tree itself instead of relying on other CPUs to bring it work.
 *
 * This adds some complexity to both (5) and (8) but it reduces the total idle
 * time.
 *
 * [XXX more?]
 *
 *
 * CGROUPS
 *
 * Cgroups make a horror show out of (2), instead of a simple sum we get:
 *
 *                                s_k,i
 *   W_i,0 = \Sum_j \Prod_k w_k * -----                               (9)
 *                                 S_k
 *
 * Where
 *
 *   s_k,i = \Sum_j w_i,j,k  and  S_k = \Sum_i s_k,i                 (10)
 *
 * w_i,j,k is the weight of the j-th runnable task in the k-th cgroup on cpu i.
 *
 * The big problem is S_k, its a global sum needed to compute a local (W_i)
 * property.
 *
 * [XXX write more on how we solve this.. _after_ merging pjt's patches that
 *      rewrite all of this once again.]
 */ 

static unsigned long __read_mostly max_load_balance_interval = HZ/10;