Re: [Xen-devel] multi-core VMM

["G.R." <firemeteor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Stefano,
We are discussing the topic of HT (hyper-threading) over virtualization.
So far it is just out of curiosity. Do you know who is the expert that
can share some comments?

Thanks,
Timothy

On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 11:24 PM, G.R. <firemeteor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I'm not quite sure. Exposing HT info to guest is only part of the
> story (but absolutely required)
>
> HT is a tech to share compute resources provided by a single physical
> core so as to achieve better utilization.
> OS should schedule two complementary instead of competing threads to
> one physical core to achieve better performance.
> Good example includes INT thread + FP thread, calc thread + mem
> bounded thread etc.
> If two threads contents for same resources in a physical core, the
> overall throughput for one physical core may even drop as compare to
> the case of only one thread.
> I'm not sure how OS scheduler obtain such info, but maybe there are
> instruction statistics for this purpose.
>
> So it appears to me that only when the OS have full control over the
> core, can it schedule best for HT.
> (but this really depends on what kind of statistics is available. The
> statement above is what I can guess best.)
>
> In virtualized env, the above assumption can not be easily achieved.
> People may be able to manipulate the CPU affinity through cpuset etc.
> On the other hand, without human invention, I'm not sure if the xen
> scheduler is doing anything special to handle HT.
>
> On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 9:00 PM, ZHANG Zhi <zhizhang@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>         Yeah, I think you're right.
>>         Maybe it also depends on the virtualization techniques. If it's 
>> hardware assisted virtualization, guest OS may detect the HT info, because 
>> it can also scan the BIOS memory, right?
>>
>>
>> re: Re: [Xen-devel] multi-core VMM
>>
>> Well, I can't agree.
>> HW provide features and SW use it. Otherwise, HW feature is just a vain.
>>
>> PS: please keep the list CCed so that people are aware of the discussion. 
>> Probably they have something to share on this topic.
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 1:37 PM, ZHANG Zhi <zhizhang@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> I think it's the hardware's business, namely the Intel or AMD, not the 
>>> hyperviosr's business. Xen does not have to consider such an issue.
>>>
>>> Re:
>>> I think that's possible, you can check the cpupool related command in the 
>>> xl manpage.
>>>
>>> But I have a similar question -- In CPU like i7, 8 logical cores are not 
>>> fully equivalent.
>>> They are hyper-threading over CMP. The two HT cores from a single physical 
>>> core are contending for pipeline resource. In linux kernel, there is 
>>> specific scheduler optimization for this case.
>>> My question is that how XEN hypervisor handle this? Will such HT info be 
>>> available to the VM?
>>> I guess there may be some different depend on whether you bind VCPU to host 
>>> core or not.
>>>
>>> Also, is there any different for dom0 && domU in this aspect?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Timothy
>>>
>>> On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 2:20 PM, ZHANG Zhi <zhizhang@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> Hi, list,
>>>>
>>>> A VMM provides a VMCS for each VM. How does the VMM assign system
>>>> resources for each VM? For example, in a multi-core environment, how
>>>> can I enable the VMM to run, say, on a two-core intel's processor
>>>> while I am able to force a VM to execute only on a specific core upon
>>>> initializing the Guest OS ? that is to say, how I can assure the VM
>>>> to believe that there is only one physical core running on this machine?
>>>>
>>>> What should I do? Is it possible to assign a core when VMM starts a
>>>> new VM after the VMM is booted ?
>>>>
>>>>    Thanks a lot!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Xen-devel mailing list
>>>> Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> http://lists.xen.org/xen-devel
>>>>

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