If there are shared processor LPARs, underlying Hypervisor can have more virtual cores to handle than actual physical cores.
Starting with Power 9, a big core (aka SMT8 core) has 2 nearly independent thread groups. On a shared processors LPARs, it helps to pack threads to lesser number of cores so that the overall system performance and utilization improves. PowerVM schedules at a big core level. Hence packing to fewer cores helps. For example: Lets says there are two 8-core Shared LPARs that are actually sharing a 8 Core shared physical pool, each running 8 threads each. Then Consolidating 8 threads to 4 cores on each LPAR would help them to perform better. This is because each of the LPAR will get 100% time to run applications and there will no switching required by the Hypervisor. To achieve this, enable SD_ASYM_PACKING flag at CACHE, MC and DIE level when the system is running in shared processor mode and has big cores. Signed-off-by: Srikar Dronamraju <sri...@linux.vnet.ibm.com> --- Changelog: v1->v2: Using Jump label instead of a variable. v2 -> v3: - Handle comments on commit message (Michael Ellerman) - Rework using existing cpu_has_features static key (Michael Ellerman) - Added a comment on why we do asym_packing at core (Peter Zijlstra) arch/powerpc/kernel/smp.c | 32 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-------- 1 file changed, 24 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kernel/smp.c b/arch/powerpc/kernel/smp.c index 5826f5108a12..dbf0a584804b 100644 --- a/arch/powerpc/kernel/smp.c +++ b/arch/powerpc/kernel/smp.c @@ -988,18 +988,22 @@ static int __init init_thread_group_cache_map(int cpu, int cache_property) } static bool shared_caches; +/* + * On shared processor LPARs scheduled on a big core (which has two or more + * independent thread groups per core), prefer lower numbered CPUs, so + * that workload consolidates to lesser number of cores. + */ +static __ro_after_init DEFINE_STATIC_KEY_FALSE(splpar_asym_pack); #ifdef CONFIG_SCHED_SMT /* cpumask of CPUs with asymmetric SMT dependency */ static int powerpc_smt_flags(void) { - int flags = SD_SHARE_CPUCAPACITY | SD_SHARE_PKG_RESOURCES; + if (cpu_has_feature(CPU_FTR_ASYM_SMT) || + static_branch_unlikely(&splpar_asym_pack)) + return SD_SHARE_CPUCAPACITY | SD_SHARE_PKG_RESOURCES | SD_ASYM_PACKING; - if (cpu_has_feature(CPU_FTR_ASYM_SMT)) { - printk_once(KERN_INFO "Enabling Asymmetric SMT scheduling\n"); - flags |= SD_ASYM_PACKING; - } - return flags; + return SD_SHARE_CPUCAPACITY | SD_SHARE_PKG_RESOURCES; } #endif @@ -1011,9 +1015,20 @@ static int powerpc_smt_flags(void) */ static int powerpc_shared_cache_flags(void) { + if (static_branch_unlikely(&splpar_asym_pack)) + return SD_SHARE_PKG_RESOURCES | SD_ASYM_PACKING; + return SD_SHARE_PKG_RESOURCES; } +static int powerpc_shared_proc_flags(void) +{ + if (static_branch_unlikely(&splpar_asym_pack)) + return SD_ASYM_PACKING; + + return 0; +} + /* * We can't just pass cpu_l2_cache_mask() directly because * returns a non-const pointer and the compiler barfs on that. @@ -1050,8 +1065,8 @@ static struct sched_domain_topology_level powerpc_topology[] = { { cpu_smt_mask, powerpc_smt_flags, SD_INIT_NAME(SMT) }, #endif { shared_cache_mask, powerpc_shared_cache_flags, SD_INIT_NAME(CACHE) }, - { cpu_mc_mask, SD_INIT_NAME(MC) }, - { cpu_cpu_mask, SD_INIT_NAME(DIE) }, + { cpu_mc_mask, powerpc_shared_proc_flags, SD_INIT_NAME(MC) }, + { cpu_cpu_mask, powerpc_shared_proc_flags, SD_INIT_NAME(DIE) }, { NULL, }, }; @@ -1686,7 +1701,13 @@ static void __init fixup_topology(void) { int i; + if (is_shared_processor() && has_big_cores) + static_branch_enable(&splpar_asym_pack); + #ifdef CONFIG_SCHED_SMT + if (cpu_has_feature(CPU_FTR_ASYM_SMT)) + pr_info_once("Enabling Asymmetric SMT scheduling\n"); + if (has_big_cores) { pr_info("Big cores detected but using small core scheduling\n"); powerpc_topology[smt_idx].mask = smallcore_smt_mask; -- 2.31.1