Re: [v2 0/5] parallelized "struct page" zeroing

From: Matthew Wilcox
Date: Sat Mar 25 2017 - 17:27:39 EST


On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 03:19:47PM -0400, Pavel Tatashin wrote:
> Changelog:
> v1 - v2
> - Per request, added s390 to deferred "struct page" zeroing
> - Collected performance data on x86 which proofs the importance to
> keep memset() as prefetch (see below).
>
> When deferred struct page initialization feature is enabled, we get a
> performance gain of initializing vmemmap in parallel after other CPUs are
> started. However, we still zero the memory for vmemmap using one boot CPU.
> This patch-set fixes the memset-zeroing limitation by deferring it as well.
>
> Performance gain on SPARC with 32T:
> base: https://hastebin.com/ozanelatat.go
> fix: https://hastebin.com/utonawukof.go
>
> As you can see without the fix it takes: 97.89s to boot
> With the fix it takes: 46.91 to boot.
>
> Performance gain on x86 with 1T:
> base: https://hastebin.com/uvifasohon.pas
> fix: https://hastebin.com/anodiqaguj.pas
>
> On Intel we save 10.66s/T while on SPARC we save 1.59s/T. Intel has
> twice as many pages, and also fewer nodes than SPARC (sparc 32 nodes, vs.
> intel 8 nodes).
>
> It takes one thread 11.25s to zero vmemmap on Intel for 1T, so it should
> take additional 11.25 / 8 = 1.4s (this machine has 8 nodes) per node to
> initialize the memory, but it takes only additional 0.456s per node, which
> means on Intel we also benefit from having memset() and initializing all
> other fields in one place.

My question was how long it takes if you memset in neither place.