Re: [PATCH RESEND 1/4] memory tiering: add abstract distance calculation algorithms management

["Huang, Ying" <ying.huang@intel.com>]

Alistair Popple <apopple@nvidia.com> writes:

> "Huang, Ying" <ying.huang@intel.com> writes:
>
>> Hi, Alistair,
>>
>> Thanks a lot for comments!
>>
>> Alistair Popple <apopple@nvidia.com> writes:
>>
>>> Huang Ying <ying.huang@intel.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> The abstract distance may be calculated by various drivers, such as
>>>> ACPI HMAT, CXL CDAT, etc.  While it may be used by various code which
>>>> hot-add memory node, such as dax/kmem etc.  To decouple the algorithm
>>>> users and the providers, the abstract distance calculation algorithms
>>>> management mechanism is implemented in this patch.  It provides
>>>> interface for the providers to register the implementation, and
>>>> interface for the users.
>>>
>>> I wonder if we need this level of decoupling though? It seems to me like
>>> it would be simpler and better for drivers to calculate the abstract
>>> distance directly themselves by calling the desired algorithm (eg. ACPI
>>> HMAT) and pass this when creating the nodes rather than having a
>>> notifier chain.
>>
>> Per my understanding, ACPI HMAT and memory device drivers (such as
>> dax/kmem) may belong to different subsystems (ACPI vs. dax).  It's not
>> good to call functions across subsystems directly.  So, I think it's
>> better to use a general subsystem: memory-tier.c to decouple them.  If
>> it turns out that a notifier chain is unnecessary, we can use some
>> function pointers instead.
>>
>>> At the moment it seems we've only identified two possible algorithms
>>> (ACPI HMAT and CXL CDAT) and I don't think it would make sense for one
>>> of those to fallback to the other based on priority, so why not just
>>> have drivers call the correct algorithm directly?
>>
>> For example, we have a system with PMEM (persistent memory, Optane
>> DCPMM, or AEP, or something else) in DIMM slots and CXL.mem connected
>> via CXL link to a remote memory pool.  We will need ACPI HMAT for PMEM
>> and CXL CDAT for CXL.mem.  One way is to make dax/kmem identify the
>> types of the device and call corresponding algorithms.
>
> Yes, that is what I was thinking.
>
>> The other way (suggested by this series) is to make dax/kmem call a
>> notifier chain, then CXL CDAT or ACPI HMAT can identify the type of
>> device and calculate the distance if the type is correct for them.  I
>> don't think that it's good to make dax/kem to know every possible
>> types of memory devices.
>
> Do we expect there to be lots of different types of memory devices
> sharing a common dax/kmem driver though? Must admit I'm coming from a
> GPU background where we'd expect each type of device to have it's own
> driver anyway so wasn't expecting different types of memory devices to
> be handled by the same driver.

Now, dax/kmem.c is used for

- PMEM (Optane DCPMM, or AEP)
- CXL.mem
- HBM (attached to CPU)

I understand that for a CXL GPU driver it's OK to call some CXL CDAT
helper to identify the abstract distance of memory attached to GPU.
Because there's no cross-subsystem function calls.  But it looks not
very clean to call from dax/kmem.c to CXL CDAT because it's a
cross-subsystem function call.

>>>> Multiple algorithm implementations can cooperate via calculating
>>>> abstract distance for different memory nodes.  The preference of
>>>> algorithm implementations can be specified via
>>>> priority (notifier_block.priority).
>>>
>>> How/what decides the priority though? That seems like something better
>>> decided by a device driver than the algorithm driver IMHO.
>>
>> Do we need the memory device driver specific priority?  Or we just share
>> a common priority?  For example, the priority of CXL CDAT is always
>> higher than that of ACPI HMAT?  Or architecture specific?
>
> Ok, thanks. Having read the above I think the priority is
> unimportant. Algorithms can either decide to return a distance and
> NOTIFY_STOP_MASK if they can calculate a distance or NOTIFY_DONE if they
> can't for a specific device.

Yes.  In most cases, there are no overlaps among algorithms.

>> And, I don't think that we are forced to use the general notifier
>> chain interface in all memory device drivers.  If the memory device
>> driver has better understanding of the memory device, it can use other
>> way to determine abstract distance.  For example, a CXL memory device
>> driver can identify abstract distance by itself.  While other memory
>> device drivers can use the general notifier chain interface at the
>> same time.
>
> Whilst I think personally I would find that flexibility useful I am
> concerned it means every driver will just end up divining it's own
> distance rather than ensuring data in HMAT/CDAT/etc. is correct. That
> would kind of defeat the purpose of it all then.

But we have no way to enforce that too.

--
Best Regards,
Huang, Ying