Core counts keep rising, and that means that the Linux kernel continues to encounter interesting performance and scalability issues. Which is not a bad thing, since it has been fifteen years since the “free lunch” of exponential CPU-clock frequency increases came to an abrupt end. During that time, the number of hardware threads per socket has risen sharply, approaching 100 for some high-end implementations. In addition, there is much more to scaling than simply larger numbers of CPUs.
Proposed topics for this microconference include optimizations for mmap_sem range locking; clearly defining what mmap_sem protects; scalability of page allocation, zone->lock, and lru_lock; swap scalability; variable hotpatching (self-modifying code!); multithreading kernel work; improved workqueue interaction with CPU hotplug events; proper (and optimized) cgroup accounting for workqueue threads; and automatically scaling the threshold values for per-CPU counters.
We are also accepting additional topics. In particular, we are curious to hear about real-world bottlenecks that people are running into, as well as scalability work-in-progress that needs face-to-face discussion.
We hope to see you there!
paulmckrcu 