ASMP: Improving performance through dedication of OS tasks to specific processors

Registered by Paul McKenney

[Slides](http://www.linuxplumbersconf.org/2012/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/2012-lpc-ASMP-lameter.pdf)

Processors increase performance by adding cores instead of clock speed these days and therefore algorithms in general need to be able to work in a distributed way. In the kernel we have tried to go to more fine grained locking in order to increase performance. However, with that approach locking overhead grows if highly concurrent processing occurs in the Kernel. Synchronization becomes expensive. This session investigates how performance is affected if we do the opposite: Use coarse grained locking to perform large chunks of work on a single core instead which means that locking overhead is reduced and the processor caches are fully available for a significant piece of work.

Topic Lead: Christoph Lameter <email address hidden>
Christoph has been contributing to various core kernel subsystems over the years and created much of the NUMA infrastructure in the Linux Kernel when he worked as a Principal Engineer for Silicon Graphics on adapting Linux for use in Supercomputers. Scaling Linux is a focus of his work both in terms of performance for HPC (High Performance Computing) as well s for low latency in HFT (High Frequency Trading). Christoph maintains the slab allocators and the per cpu subsystem in the Linux Kernel and currently works as an architect for a leading HFT company.

Blueprint information

Status:
Not started
Approver:
None
Priority:
Undefined
Drafter:
None
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
Christoph Lameter
Definition:
New
Series goal:
None
Implementation:
Unknown
Milestone target:
None

Related branches

Sprints

Whiteboard

(?)

Work Items

This blueprint contains Public information 
Everyone can see this information.