linux/Documentation/device-mapper/dm-service-time.txt
Kiyoshi Ueda f392ba889b dm mpath: add service time load balancer
This patch adds a service time oriented dynamic load balancer,
dm-service-time, which selects the path with the shortest estimated
service time for the incoming I/O.
The service time is estimated by dividing the in-flight I/O size
by a performance value of each path.

The performance value can be given as a table argument at the table
loading time.  If no performance value is given, all paths are
considered equal.

Signed-off-by: Kiyoshi Ueda <k-ueda@ct.jp.nec.com>
Signed-off-by: Jun'ichi Nomura <j-nomura@ce.jp.nec.com>
Signed-off-by: Alasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>
2009-06-22 10:12:28 +01:00

91 lines
3.2 KiB
Text

dm-service-time
===============
dm-service-time is a path selector module for device-mapper targets,
which selects a path with the shortest estimated service time for
the incoming I/O.
The service time for each path is estimated by dividing the total size
of in-flight I/Os on a path with the performance value of the path.
The performance value is a relative throughput value among all paths
in a path-group, and it can be specified as a table argument.
The path selector name is 'service-time'.
Table parameters for each path: [<repeat_count> [<relative_throughput>]]
<repeat_count>: The number of I/Os to dispatch using the selected
path before switching to the next path.
If not given, internal default is used. To check
the default value, see the activated table.
<relative_throughput>: The relative throughput value of the path
among all paths in the path-group.
The valid range is 0-100.
If not given, minimum value '1' is used.
If '0' is given, the path isn't selected while
other paths having a positive value are available.
Status for each path: <status> <fail-count> <in-flight-size> \
<relative_throughput>
<status>: 'A' if the path is active, 'F' if the path is failed.
<fail-count>: The number of path failures.
<in-flight-size>: The size of in-flight I/Os on the path.
<relative_throughput>: The relative throughput value of the path
among all paths in the path-group.
Algorithm
=========
dm-service-time adds the I/O size to 'in-flight-size' when the I/O is
dispatched and substracts when completed.
Basically, dm-service-time selects a path having minimum service time
which is calculated by:
('in-flight-size' + 'size-of-incoming-io') / 'relative_throughput'
However, some optimizations below are used to reduce the calculation
as much as possible.
1. If the paths have the same 'relative_throughput', skip
the division and just compare the 'in-flight-size'.
2. If the paths have the same 'in-flight-size', skip the division
and just compare the 'relative_throughput'.
3. If some paths have non-zero 'relative_throughput' and others
have zero 'relative_throughput', ignore those paths with zero
'relative_throughput'.
If such optimizations can't be applied, calculate service time, and
compare service time.
If calculated service time is equal, the path having maximum
'relative_throughput' may be better. So compare 'relative_throughput'
then.
Examples
========
In case that 2 paths (sda and sdb) are used with repeat_count == 128
and sda has an average throughput 1GB/s and sdb has 4GB/s,
'relative_throughput' value may be '1' for sda and '4' for sdb.
# echo "0 10 multipath 0 0 1 1 service-time 0 2 2 8:0 128 1 8:16 128 4" \
dmsetup create test
#
# dmsetup table
test: 0 10 multipath 0 0 1 1 service-time 0 2 2 8:0 128 1 8:16 128 4
#
# dmsetup status
test: 0 10 multipath 2 0 0 0 1 1 E 0 2 2 8:0 A 0 0 1 8:16 A 0 0 4
Or '2' for sda and '8' for sdb would be also true.
# echo "0 10 multipath 0 0 1 1 service-time 0 2 2 8:0 128 2 8:16 128 8" \
dmsetup create test
#
# dmsetup table
test: 0 10 multipath 0 0 1 1 service-time 0 2 2 8:0 128 2 8:16 128 8
#
# dmsetup status
test: 0 10 multipath 2 0 0 0 1 1 E 0 2 2 8:0 A 0 0 2 8:16 A 0 0 8