Re: [PATCH RFC 0/1] mm: balancing the node zones occupancy

From: Charan Teja Kalla <charante@codeaurora.org>
To: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>,
	akpm@linux-foundation.org, rientjes@google.com, mhocko@suse.com,
	david@redhat.com, mgorman@techsingularity.net,
	linux-mm@kvack.org
Cc: vinmenon@codeaurora.org, sudaraja@codeaurora.org,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC 0/1] mm: balancing the node zones occupancy
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2021 19:15:19 +0530	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <ee78c83d-da9b-f6d1-4f66-934b7782acfb@codeaurora.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1c445421-ddeb-8768-03d0-81537b0d1875@suse.cz>

Thanks Vlastimil for the review comments!!

On 2/19/2021 4:56 PM, Vlastimil Babka wrote:
> Can you share the use case for doing this? If it's to replace a failed RAM, then
> it's probably extremely rare, right.
> 
>> We have the proof-of-concept code tried on the Snapdragon systems with
>> the system configuration, single memory node of just 2 zones, 6GB normal
>> zone and 2GB movable zone. And this Movable zone is such that hot-added
>> once and there after offline/online based on the need.
> Hm, snapdragon... so is this some kind of power saving thing?
> 

You are correct. This is the power saving usecase which does the offline
and online of the memory blocks in the system by the user. This is not a
failed RAM.

> Anyway, shouln't auto NUMA balancing help here, and especially "Migrate Pages in
> lieu of discard" (CC'd Dave) as a generic mechanism, 

On the Snapdragon systems we have got only single memory node with
Normal and movable zones. And my little understanding is that on most
embedded systems we will just have single memory node.

My limited understanding about this auto NUMA balancing is that there
should be min. 2 nodes for this balancing to trigger. Please correct if
I am wrong here. If I am correct then this approach is not suitable for
us. Moreover the idea I would like to convey in this RFC patch is about
__balancing the zones in a node but not across NUMA nodes__.

> so we wouldn't need to have hotplug-specific actions?
David has told a very simple view of this problem which is nothing todo
with the hotplug specific actions.

With just 2 zones(Normal and Movable) in a single node in the system,

1. Application 1 allocates a lot of memory and gets ZONE_MOVABLE.
2. Application 2 allocates a lot of memory and gets ZONE_NORMAL.
3. Application 1 quits.

Then after step3, we can expect a lot free memory in the Movable zone
but normal zone is under pressure. Applying the similar semantics of
Auto numa balancing("Migrate pages in lieu of swap/discard"), we could
migrate some eligible pages of Application 2 to Movable zone there by
can relieve some pressure in Normal zone.

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