WARNING - OLD ARCHIVES

This is an archived copy of the Xen.org mailing list, which we have preserved to ensure that existing links to archives are not broken. The live archive, which contains the latest emails, can be found at http://lists.xen.org/
   
 
 
Xen 
 
Home Products Support Community News
 
   
 

xen-devel

Re: Performance data of Linux native vs. Xen Dom0 and Xen DomU. Re: [Xen

To: "Ian Pratt" <m+Ian.Pratt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Performance data of Linux native vs. Xen Dom0 and Xen DomU. Re: [Xen-devel] Direct I/O to domU seeing a 30% performance hit
From: "George Dunlap" <gdunlap@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 13:53:56 -0500
Cc: Emmanuel Ackaouy <ack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Liang Yang <multisyncfe991@xxxxxxxxxxx>, xen-devel <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, John Byrne <john.l.byrne@xxxxxx>
Delivery-date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 06:46:42 -0800
Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:sender:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references:x-google-sender-auth; b=gkBJk2/W6cmhXvPxlEWhC2xdkNnyING6qKZCh6uKVAB5Xv84FS/EXUVz8Du3haN8GBiBAYyoLCoIlaUVcBe1PIg6aQUrhNV0AKA/TLotspjrjcxYYA3drwJacRenBHeLkScqLxIVxAP9/9jc+3fzVP4wR5ltgl2gYa4eYDEnUD0=
Envelope-to: www-data@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In-reply-to: <8A87A9A84C201449A0C56B728ACF491E01F781@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
List-help: <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=help>
List-id: Xen developer discussion <xen-devel.lists.xensource.com>
List-post: <mailto:xen-devel@lists.xensource.com>
List-subscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=subscribe>
List-unsubscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=unsubscribe>
References: <8A87A9A84C201449A0C56B728ACF491E01F781@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sender: xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
One of the strange things, though, is that the difference should be so
big between domU and dom0, which are using the exact same same kernel
(correct me if I'm wrong).

I'm not familiar with the I/O scheduling.  Is it possible that the I/O
scheduling inside the domU is interacting poorly with the I/O
scheduling in dom0?  That's one hypothesis for why domU writes are
slower than dom0 writes; but that doesn't seem to explain why domU
reads would be *faster* than dom0 reads.

-George

On 11/7/06, Ian Pratt <m+Ian.Pratt@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Attached is the diff of the two kernel configs.

There are a *lot* of differences between those kernel configs. A cursory
glance spots such gems as:

< CONFIG_DEFAULT_IOSCHED="cfq"
---
> CONFIG_DEFAULT_IOSCHED="anticipatory"

All bets are off.

Ian


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ian Pratt" <m+Ian.Pratt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Liang Yang" <yangliang_mr@xxxxxxxxxxx>; "John Byrne"
> <john.l.byrne@xxxxxx>
> Cc: "xen-devel" <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Emmanuel Ackaouy"
> <ack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <ian.pratt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 11:15 AM
> Subject: RE: Performance data of Linux native vs. Xen Dom0
> and Xen DomU. Re:
> [Xen-devel] Direct I/O to domU seeing a 30% performance hit
>
>
> > I already set dom0_max_vcpus=1 for domain0 when I was doing testing.
> Also,
> > Linux native kernel and domU kernel are all compiled as
> Uni-Processor
> > mode.All the testing for Linux native, domain0 and domainU
> are exactly
> the
> > same. All used Linux kernel 2.6.16.29.
>
> Please could you post a 'diff' of the two kernel configs.
>
> It might be worth diff'ing the boot messages in both cases too.
>
> Thanks,
> Ian
>
>
> > Regards,
> >
> > Liang
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Ian Pratt" <m+Ian.Pratt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: "Liang Yang" <multisyncfe991@xxxxxxxxxxx>; "John Byrne"
> > <john.l.byrne@xxxxxx>
> > Cc: "xen-devel" <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Emmanuel Ackaouy"
> > <ack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <ian.pratt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 11:06 AM
> > Subject: RE: Performance data of Linux native vs. Xen Dom0 and Xen
> DomU.
> > Re:
> > [Xen-devel] Direct I/O to domU seeing a 30% performance hit
> >
> >
> > > I'm also doing some performance analysis about Linux native, dom0
> and
> > domU
> > > (para-virtualized). Here are some brief comparison for 256K
> sequential
> > > read/write. The testing is done using for JBOD based on 8
> Maxtor SAS
> > Atlas
> > > 2
> > > 15K drives with LSI SAS HBA.
> > >
> > > 256K Sequential Read
> > > Linux Native: 559.6MB/s
> > > Xen Domain0: 423.3MB/s
> > > Xen DomainU: 555.9MB/s
> >
> > This doesn't make a lot of sense. Only thing I can think of is that
> > there must be some extra prefetching going on in the domU case. It
> still
> > doesn't explain why the dom0 result is so much worse than native.
> >
> > It might be worth repeating with both native and dom0 boot with
> > maxcpus=1.
> >
> > Are you using near-identical kernels in both cases? Same
> drivers, same
> > part of the disk for the tests, etc?
> >
> > How are you doing the measurement? A timed 'dd'?
> >
> > Ian
> >
> >
> > > 256K Sequential Write
> > > Linux Native: 668.9MB/s
> > > Xen Domain0: 708.7MB/s
> > > Xen DomainU: 373.5MB/s
> > >
> > > Just two questions:
> > >
> > > It seems para-virtualized DomU outperform Dom0 in terms of
> sequential
> > read
> > > and is very to Linux native performance. However, DomU does show
> poor
> > (only
> > > 50%) sequential write performance compared with Linux native and
> Dom0.
> > >
> > > Could you explain some reason behind this?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Liang
> > >
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Ian Pratt" <m+Ian.Pratt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > To: "John Byrne" <john.l.byrne@xxxxxx>
> > > Cc: "xen-devel" <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
> "Emmanuel Ackaouy"
> > > <ack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 10:20 AM
> > > Subject: RE: [Xen-devel] Direct I/O to domU seeing a 30%
> performance
> > hit
> > >
> > >
> > > > Both dom0 and the domU are SLES 10, so I don't know why
> the "idle"
> > > > performance of the two should be different. The obvious
> asymmetry
> is
> > > the
> > > > disk. Since the disk isn't direct, any disk I/O by the
> domU would
> > > > certainly impact dom0, but I don't think there should
> be much, if
> > any.
> > > I
> > > > did run a dom0 test with the domU started, but idle and
> there was
> no
> > > > real change to dom0's numbers.
> > > >
> > > > What's the best way to gather information about what is going on
> > with
> > > > the domains without perturbing them? (Or, at least, perturbing
> > > everyone
> > > > equally.)
> > > >
> > > > As to the test, I am running netperf 2.4.1 on an outside machine
> to
> > > the
> > > > dom0 and the domU. (So the doms are running the netserver
> portion.)
> > I
> > > > was originally running it in the doms to the outside
> machine, but
> > when
> > > > the bad numbers showed up I moved it to the outside machine
> because
> > I
> > > > wondered if the bad numbers were due to something
> happening to the
> > > > system time in domU. The numbers is the "outside" test to domU
> look
> > > worse.
> > >
> > >
> > > It might be worth checking that there's no interrupt sharing
> > happening.
> > > While running the test against the domU, see how much CPU
> dom0 burns
> > in
> > > the same period using 'xm vcpu-list'.
> > >
> > > To keep things simple, have dom0 and domU as uniprocessor guests.
> > >
> > > Ian
> > >
> > >
> > > > Ian Pratt wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >> There have been a couple of network receive throughput
> > > > >> performance regressions to domUs over time that were
> > > > >> subsequently fixed. I think one may have crept in to 3.0.3.
> > > > >
> > > > > The report was (I believe) with a NIC directly assigned to the
> > domU,
> > > so
> > > > > not using netfront/back at all.
> > > > >
> > > > > John: please can you give more details on your config.
> > > > >
> > > > > Ian
> > > > >
> > > > >> Are you seeing any dropped packets on the vif associated with
> > > > >> your domU in your dom0? If so, propagating changeset
> > > > >> 11861 from unstable may help:
> > > > >>
> > > > >> changeset:   11861:637eace6d5c6
> > > > >> user:        kfraser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > > >> date:        Mon Oct 23 11:20:37 2006 +0100
> > > > >> summary:     [NET] back: Fix packet queuing so that packets
> > > > >> are drained if the
> > > > >>
> > > > >>
> > > > >> In the past, we also had receive throughput issues to domUs
> > > > >> that were due to socket buffer size logic but those were
> > > > >> fixed a while ago.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Can you send netstat -i output from dom0?
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Emmanuel.
> > > > >>
> > > > >>
> > > > >> On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 09:55:17PM -0800, John Byrne wrote:
> > > > >>> I was asked to test direct I/O to a PV domU. Since, I had a
> > system
> > > > >>> with two NICs, I gave one to a domU and one dom0. (Each is
> > > > >> running the
> > > > >>> same
> > > > >>> kernel: xen 3.0.3 x86_64.)
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> I'm running netperf from an outside system to the domU and
> > > > >> dom0 and I
> > > > >>> am seeing 30% less throughput for the domU vs dom0.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> Is this to be expected? If so, why? If not, does anyone
> > > > >> have a guess
> > > > >>> as to what I might be doing wrong or what the issue
> might be?
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> Thanks,
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> John Byrne
> > > > >> _______________________________________________
> > > > >> Xen-devel mailing list
> > > > >> Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > > >> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel
> > > > >>
> > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > Xen-devel mailing list
> > > > > Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > > > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel
> > > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Xen-devel mailing list
> > > Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel
> >
>
>

_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel


_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel