Re: [PATCH 00/10] mm: Linux VM Infrastructure to support Memory Power Management

[Ankita Garg <ankita@in.ibm.com>]

Hi,

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 06:12:51PM +0900, KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Jun 2011 09:50:44 +0530
> Ankita Garg <ankita@in.ibm.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 01:47:01PM +0900, KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki wrote:
> > > On Fri, 27 May 2011 18:01:28 +0530
> > > Ankita Garg <ankita@in.ibm.com> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Hi,
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > I'm sorry if you've answered already.
> > > 
> > > Is memory hotplug is too bad and cannot be enhanced for this purpose ?
> > > 
> > > I wonder
> > >   - make section-size smaller (IIUC, IBM's system has 16MB section size)
> > > 
> > >   - add per section statistics
> > > 
> > >   - add a kind of balloon driver which does software memory offline
> > >     (which means making a contiguous chunk of free pages of section_size
> > >      by page migration) in background with regard to memory usage statistics.
> > >     If system says "need more memory!", balloon driver can online pages.
> > > 
> > > can work for your purpose. It can allow you page isolatation and
> > > controls in 16MB unit.  If you need whole rework of memory hotplug, I think
> > > it's better to rewrite memory hotplug, too.
> > >
> > 
> > Interesting idea, but a few issues -
> > 
> > - Correctly predicting memory pressure is difficult and thereby being
> >   able to online the required pages at the right time could be a
> >   challenge
> 
> But it will be required for your purpose, anyway. Isn't it ?
> 
> > - Memory hotplug is a heavy operation, so the overhead involved may be
> >   high
> 
> soft-offline of small amount of pages will not very heavy.
> compaction and cma patches use the same kind of logic.
> 
> 
> > - Powering off memory is just one of the ways in which memory power could
> >   be saved. The platform can also dynamically transition areas of memory
> >   into a  content-preserving lower power state if it is not referenced
> >   for a pre-defined threshold of time. In such a case, we would need a
> >   mechanism to soft offline the pages - i.e, no new allocations to be
> >   directed to that memory
> > 
> 
> Hmm, sounds like a similar idea of CleanCache ?
> 
> Reusing section is much easier than adding new one.., I think.
> 

But sections do not define the granualarity at which memory operations
are done right ? i.e, allocations/deallocations or reclaim cannot be
directed to a section or a group of sections ?

-- 
Regards,
Ankita Garg (ankita@in.ibm.com)
Linux Technology Center
IBM India Systems & Technology Labs,
Bangalore, India