[PATCH] sched: new sched domain for representing multi-core

Add a new sched domain for representing multi-core with shared caches
between cores.  Consider a dual package system, each package containing two
cores and with last level cache shared between cores with in a package.  If
there are two runnable processes, with this appended patch those two
processes will be scheduled on different packages.

On such systems, with this patch we have observed 8% perf improvement with
specJBB(2 warehouse) benchmark and 35% improvement with CFP2000 rate(with 2
users).

This new domain will come into play only on multi-core systems with shared
caches.  On other systems, this sched domain will be removed by domain
degeneration code.  This new domain can be also used for implementing power
savings policy (see OLS 2005 CMP kernel scheduler paper for more details..
I will post another patch for power savings policy soon)

Most of the arch/* file changes are for cpu_coregroup_map() implementation.

Signed-off-by: Suresh Siddha <suresh.b.siddha@intel.com>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

1 files changed, 9 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/arch/i386/Kconfig b/arch/i386/Kconfig
index f7db71d0b913..f17bd1d2707e 100644
--- a/arch/i386/Kconfig
+++ b/arch/i386/Kconfig
@@ -231,6 +231,15 @@ config SCHED_SMT
           cost of slightly increased overhead in some places. If unsure say
           N here.
 
+config SCHED_MC
+        bool "Multi-core scheduler support"
+        depends on SMP
+        default y
+        help
+          Multi-core scheduler support improves the CPU scheduler's decision
+          making when dealing with multi-core CPU chips at a cost of slightly
+          increased overhead in some places. If unsure say N here.
+
 source "kernel/Kconfig.preempt"
 
 config X86_UP_APIC