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authorKiyoshi Ueda <k-ueda@ct.jp.nec.com>2009-06-22 05:12:28 -0400
committerAlasdair G Kergon <agk@redhat.com>2009-06-22 05:12:28 -0400
commitf392ba889b019602976082bfe7bf486c2594f85c (patch)
tree962e8f354dfe3df2021476412be8d1bcec8a03d0 /Documentation
parentfd5e033908b7b743b5650790f196761dd930f988 (diff)
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>
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1dm-service-time
2===============
3
4dm-service-time is a path selector module for device-mapper targets,
5which selects a path with the shortest estimated service time for
6the incoming I/O.
7
8The service time for each path is estimated by dividing the total size
9of in-flight I/Os on a path with the performance value of the path.
10The performance value is a relative throughput value among all paths
11in a path-group, and it can be specified as a table argument.
12
13The path selector name is 'service-time'.
14
15Table parameters for each path: [<repeat_count> [<relative_throughput>]]
16 <repeat_count>: The number of I/Os to dispatch using the selected
17 path before switching to the next path.
18 If not given, internal default is used. To check
19 the default value, see the activated table.
20 <relative_throughput>: The relative throughput value of the path
21 among all paths in the path-group.
22 The valid range is 0-100.
23 If not given, minimum value '1' is used.
24 If '0' is given, the path isn't selected while
25 other paths having a positive value are available.
26
27Status for each path: <status> <fail-count> <in-flight-size> \
28 <relative_throughput>
29 <status>: 'A' if the path is active, 'F' if the path is failed.
30 <fail-count>: The number of path failures.
31 <in-flight-size>: The size of in-flight I/Os on the path.
32 <relative_throughput>: The relative throughput value of the path
33 among all paths in the path-group.
34
35
36Algorithm
37=========
38
39dm-service-time adds the I/O size to 'in-flight-size' when the I/O is
40dispatched and substracts when completed.
41Basically, dm-service-time selects a path having minimum service time
42which is calculated by:
43
44 ('in-flight-size' + 'size-of-incoming-io') / 'relative_throughput'
45
46However, some optimizations below are used to reduce the calculation
47as much as possible.
48
49 1. If the paths have the same 'relative_throughput', skip
50 the division and just compare the 'in-flight-size'.
51
52 2. If the paths have the same 'in-flight-size', skip the division
53 and just compare the 'relative_throughput'.
54
55 3. If some paths have non-zero 'relative_throughput' and others
56 have zero 'relative_throughput', ignore those paths with zero
57 'relative_throughput'.
58
59If such optimizations can't be applied, calculate service time, and
60compare service time.
61If calculated service time is equal, the path having maximum
62'relative_throughput' may be better. So compare 'relative_throughput'
63then.
64
65
66Examples
67========
68In case that 2 paths (sda and sdb) are used with repeat_count == 128
69and sda has an average throughput 1GB/s and sdb has 4GB/s,
70'relative_throughput' value may be '1' for sda and '4' for sdb.
71
72# echo "0 10 multipath 0 0 1 1 service-time 0 2 2 8:0 128 1 8:16 128 4" \
73 dmsetup create test
74#
75# dmsetup table
76test: 0 10 multipath 0 0 1 1 service-time 0 2 2 8:0 128 1 8:16 128 4
77#
78# dmsetup status
79test: 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
80
81
82Or '2' for sda and '8' for sdb would be also true.
83
84# echo "0 10 multipath 0 0 1 1 service-time 0 2 2 8:0 128 2 8:16 128 8" \
85 dmsetup create test
86#
87# dmsetup table
88test: 0 10 multipath 0 0 1 1 service-time 0 2 2 8:0 128 2 8:16 128 8
89#
90# dmsetup status
91test: 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