Dan,
 I did some testing with the constant tsc offset SYNC method (now called 
no_missed_ticks_pending)
and found the error to be very high, much larger than 1 %, as I recall.
I have not had a chance to submit a correction. I will try to do it later
 this week or the first week in January. My version of constant tsc 
offset SYNC method
produces .02 % error, so I just need to port that into the current code.
The error you got for both of those kernels is what I would expect
for the default mode, delay_for_missed_ticks.
I'll let Keir answer on how to set the time mode.
Regards,
Dave
Dan Magenheimer wrote:
 
Anyone make measurements on the final patch?
I just ran a 64-bit RHEL5.1 pvm kernel and saw a loss of about 0.2% with no 
load.  This was xen-unstable tip today with no options specified.  32-bit was 
about 0.01%.
I think I missed something... how do I run the various accounting choices and 
which ones are known to be appropriate for which kernels?
Thanks,
Dan
  
-----Original Message-----
From: xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Keir Fraser
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 4:57 AM
To: Dave Winchell
Cc: Shan, Haitao; xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Dong, Eddie; Jiang,
Yunhong
 Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] Add a timer mode that 
disables pending
missed ticks
Please take a look at xen-unstable changeset 16545.
-- Keir
On 26/11/07 20:57, "Dave Winchell" <dwinchell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
    
Keir,
The accuracy data I've collected for i/o loads for the
various time protocols follows. In addition, the data
for cpu loads is shown.
The loads labeled cpu and i/o-8 are on an 8 processor AMD box.
Two guests, red hat and sles 64 bit, 8 vcpu each.
The cpu load is usex -e36 on each guest.
(usex is available at http://people.redhat.com/anderson/usex.)
i/o load is 8 instances of dd if=/dev/hda6 of=/dev/null.
The loads labeled i/o-32 are 32 instances of dd.
Also, these are run on 4 cpu AMD box.
In addition, there is an idle rh-32bit guest.
All three guests are 8vcpu.
The loads labeled i/o-4/32 are the same as i/o-32
except that the redhat-64 guest has 4 instances of dd.
Date Duration Protocol sles, rhat error load
11/07 23 hrs 40 min ASYNC -4.96 sec, +4.42 sec -.006%, +.005% cpu
11/09 3 hrs 19 min ASYNC -.13 sec, +1.44 sec, -.001%, +.012% cpu
11/08 2 hrs 21 min SYNC -.80 sec, -.34 sec, -.009%, -.004% cpu
11/08 1 hr 25 min SYNC -.24 sec, -.26 sec, -.005%, -.005% cpu
11/12 65 hrs 40 min SYNC -18 sec, -8 sec, -.008%, -.003% cpu
11/08 28 min MIXED -.75 sec, -.67 sec -.045%, -.040% cpu
11/08 15 hrs 39 min MIXED -19. sec,-17.4 sec, -.034%, -.031% cpu
11/14 17 hrs 17 min ASYNC -6.1 sec,-55.7 sec, -.01%, -.09% i/o-8
11/15 2 hrs 44 min ASYNC -1.47 sec,-14.0 sec, -.015% -.14% i/o-8
11/13 15 hrs 38 min SYNC -9.7 sec,-12.3 sec, -.017%, -.022% i/o-8
11/14 48 min SYNC - .46 sec, - .48 sec, -.017%, -.018% i/o-8
11/14 4 hrs 2 min MIXED -2.9 sec, -4.15 sec, -.020%, -.029% i/o-8
11/20 16 hrs 2 min MIXED -13.4 sec,-18.1 sec, -.023%, -.031% i/o-8
11/21 28 min MIXED -2.01 sec, -.67 sec, -.12%, -.04% i/o-32
11/21 2 hrs 25 min SYNC -.96 sec, -.43 sec, -.011%, -.005% i/o-32
11/21 40 min ASYNC -2.43 sec, -2.77 sec -.10%, -.11% i/o-32
11/26 113 hrs 46 min MIXED -297. sec, 13. sec -.07%, .003% i/o-4/32
11/26 4 hrs 50 min SYNC -3.21 sec, 1.44 sec, -.017%, .01% i/o-4/32
Overhead measurements:
 Progress in terms of number of passes through a fixed 
     
 
system workload
    
on an 8 vcpu red hat with an 8 vcpu sles idle.
The workload was usex -b48.
ASYNC 167 min 145 passes .868 passes/min
SYNC 167 min 144 passes .862 passes/min
SYNC 1065 min 919 passes .863 passes/min
MIXED 221 min 196 passes .887 passes/min
Conclusions:
The only protocol which meets the .05% accuracy requirement for ntp
tracking under the loads
 above is the SYNC protocol. The worst case accuracies for 
     
 
SYNC, MIXED,
    
and ASYNC
are .022%, .12%, and .14%, respectively.
 We could reduce the cost of the SYNC method by only 
     
 
scheduling the extra
    
wakeups if a certain number
of ticks are missed.
Regards,
Dave
Keir Fraser wrote:
      
On 9/11/07 19:22, "Dave Winchell" 
       
 
 
<dwinchell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
    
        
Since I had a high error (~.03%) for the ASYNC method a 
         
 
 
 
couple of days ago,
    
I ran another ASYNC test. I think there may have been something
 wrong with the code I used a couple of days ago for 
         
 
 
 
ASYNC. It may have been
    
missing the immediate delivery of interrupt after context 
         
 
 
 
switch in.
    
My results indicate that either SYNC or ASYNC give 
         
 
 
 
acceptable accuracy,
    
each running consistently around or under .01%. MIXED has 
         
 
 
 
a fairly high
    
error of
 greater than .03%. Probably too close to .05% ntp 
         
 
 
 
threshold for comfort.
    
I don't have an overnight run with SYNC. I plan to leave 
         
 
 
 
SYNC running
    
over the weekend. If you'd rather I can leave MIXED 
         
 
 
 
running instead.
    
It may be too early to pick the protocol and I can run 
         
 
 
 
more overnight tests
    
next week.
          
 I'm a bit worried about any unwanted side effects of the 
       
 
 
SYNC+run_timer
    
approach -- e.g., whether timer wakeups will cause higher 
       
 
 
system-wide CPU
    
contention. I find it easier to think through the 
       
 
 
implications of ASYNC. I'm
    
surprised that MIXED loses time, and is less accurate than 
       
 
 
ASYNC. Perhaps it
    
delivers more timer interrupts than the other approaches, 
       
 
 
and each interrupt
    
event causes a small accumulated error?
 Overall I would consider MIXED and ASYNC as favourites and 
       
 
 
if the latter is
    
actually more accurate then I can simply revert the changeset that
implemented MIXED.
 Perhaps rather than running more of the same workloads you 
       
 
 
could try idle
    
VCPUs and I/O bound VCPUs (e.g., repeated large disc reads 
       
 
 
to /dev/null)? We
    
don't have any data on workloads that aren't CPU bound, so 
       
 
 
that's really an
    
obvious place to put any further effort imo.
-- Keir
        
 
 
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