Re: [virtio-comment] Re: [PATCH v3 6/8] admin: Add theory of operation for write recording commands

["Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com>]

On Fri, Nov 17, 2023 at 11:05:16AM +0000, Parav Pandit wrote:
> 
> 
> > From: Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@redhat.com>
> > Sent: Friday, November 17, 2023 4:30 PM
> > 
> > On Fri, Nov 17, 2023 at 10:03:47AM +0000, Parav Pandit wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > > From: Zhu, Lingshan <lingshan.zhu@intel.com>
> > > > Sent: Friday, November 17, 2023 3:30 PM
> > > >
> > > > On 11/16/2023 7:59 PM, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > > > > On Thu, Nov 16, 2023 at 06:28:07PM +0800, Zhu, Lingshan wrote:
> > > > >>
> > > > >> On 11/16/2023 1:51 PM, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > > > >>> On Thu, Nov 16, 2023 at 05:29:54AM +0000, Parav Pandit wrote:
> > > > >>>> We should expose a limit of the device in the proposed
> > > > WRITE_RECORD_CAP_QUERY command, that how much range it can track.
> > > > >>>> So that future provisioning framework can use it.
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>> I will cover this in v5 early next week.
> > > > >>> I do worry about how this can even work though. If you want a
> > > > >>> generic device you do not get to dictate how much memory VM has.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> Aren't we talking bit per page? With 1TByte of memory to track
> > > > >>> -> 256Gbit -> 32Gbit -> 8Gbyte per VF?
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> And you happily say "we'll address this in the future" while at
> > > > >>> the same time fighting tooth and nail against adding single bit
> > > > >>> status registers because scalability?
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> I have a feeling doing this completely theoretical like this is problematic.
> > > > >>> Maybe you have it all laid out neatly in your head but I suspect
> > > > >>> not all of TC can picture it clearly enough based just on spec text.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> We do sometimes ask for POC implementation in linux / qemu to
> > > > >>> demonstrate how things work before merging code. We skipped this
> > > > >>> for admin things so far but I think it's a good idea to start
> > > > >>> doing it here.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> What makes me pause a bit before saying please do a PoC is all
> > > > >>> the opposition that seems to exist to even using admin commands
> > > > >>> in the 1st place. I think once we finally stop arguing about
> > > > >>> whether to use admin commands at all then a PoC will be needed
> > before merging.
> > > > >> We have POR productions that implemented the approach in my series.
> > > > >> They are multiple generations of productions in market and
> > > > >> running in customers data centers for years.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Back to 2019 when we start working on vDPA, we have sent some
> > > > >> samples of production(e.g., Cascade Glacier) and the datasheet,
> > > > >> you can find live migration facilities there, includes suspend,
> > > > >> vq state and other features.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> And there is an reference in DPDK live migration, I have provided
> > > > >> this page
> > > > >> before:
> > > > >> https://doc.dpdk.org/guides-21.11/vdpadevs/ifc.html, it has been
> > > > >> working for long long time.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> So if we let the facts speak, if we want to see if the proposal
> > > > >> is proven to work, I would
> > > > >> say: They are POR for years, customers already deployed them for years.
> > > > > And I guess what you are trying to say is that this patchset we
> > > > > are reviewing here should be help to the same standard and there
> > > > > should be a PoC? Sounds reasonable.
> > > > Yes and the in-marketing productions are POR, the series just
> > > > improves the design, for example, our series also use registers to
> > > > track vq state, but improvements than CG or BSC. So I think they are proven
> > to work.
> > >
> > > If you prefer to go the route of POR and production and proven documents
> > etc, there is ton of it of multiple types of products I can dump here with open-
> > source code and documentation and more.
> > > Let me know what you would like to see.
> > >
> > > Michael has requested some performance comparisons, not all are ready to
> > share yet.
> > > Some are present that I will share in coming weeks.
> > >
> > > And all the vdpa dpdk you published does not have basic CVQ support when I
> > last looked at it.
> > > Do you know when was it added?
> > 
> > It's good enough for PoC I think, CVQ or not.
> > The problem with CVQ generally, is that VDPA wants to shadow CVQ it at all
> > times because it wants to decode and cache the content. But this problem has
> > nothing to do with dirty tracking even though it also mentions "shadow":
> > if device can report it's state then there's no need to shadow CVQ.
> 
> For the performance numbers with the pre-copy and device context of patches posted 1 to 5, the downtime reduction of the VM is 3.71x with active traffic on 8 RQs at 100Gbps port speed.

Sounds good can you please post a bit more detail?
which configs are you comparing what was the result on each of them.

-- 
MST