Linux Kernel Performance

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Mission

The mission of the Linux Kernel Performance Team is making Linux better by improving Linux kernel performance, with special emphasis on SMP scalability. 

• Make Linux kernel run faster
• Identify bottlenecks and improve scalability in the Linux Kernel
• Develop patches for improving performance/scalability
• Provide a rational and scientific approach to performance analysis

We measure, analyze, and improve the performance and scalability of the Linux kernel, focusing on platform-independent issues. To accomplish the mission and to achieve our goals, we use benchmarks selected to provide coverage for workloads that align with IBM's Linux strategy and with the objectives of the Linux Technology and Solutions Center (LT&SC): scalable data center, carrier space and web server workloads. In addition, we provide coverage for testing and exposing performance issues related to specific Linux kernel components, such as the disk I/O subsystem.

Results

• See results reported in each benchmark.

Publications

• Mala Anand and Bill Hartner, TCPIP Network Stack Performance in Linux Kernel 2.4. and 2.5. To be presented at the Ottawa Linux Symposium 2002.
• Peter Wai Yee Wong, et al., Improving Linux block I/O for enterprise workloads. To be presented at the Ottawa Linux Symposium 2002. 
• Duc Vianney and James Phelan, Faster apps on a better machine. Tune your IBM Developer Kit for Linux, v1.3, for faster Java application performance, May 2001, http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/ibm/library/i-tuning/
• Ray Byant and Bill Hartner, Java technology, threads, and scheduling in Linux. Patching the kernel scheduler for better Java performance, Jan. 2000, http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/java2/index.html
• Ray Bryant, Bill Hartner, et al., SMP Scalability Comparisons of Linux® Kernels 2.2.14 and 2.3.99, August 2000, LinuxWorld 2000.
• Ray Bryant and John Hawkes, Lockmeter, highly informative spinlock instrumentation for the linux kernel, 8/28/2000.

Patches

• 8/20/01 - The IPS patch for using Jens Axboe's bounce buffer patch (ips.c.diff, ips.h.diff) - Peter Wong
• 7/27/01 - Spinlock patch - Jurgen Doelle
• 7/9/01 - Pagecache lock patch - Jurgen Doelle 
• 5/02/01 - IPS driver (ips.c, ips.h) - Peter Wong
• More patches .... 

Linux Kernel Performance Team

• Sandra Baylor - Manager  
• Bill Hartner - Tech Lead, Scalability & Data Center 
• Mala Anand - Netperf, Networking performance 
• Bill Brantley - NUMA/x440, IA64, Tivoli Liaison
• Gail Chelak - LMBench 
• Partha Narayanan - VolanoMark  
• Helen Pang - Disk IO performance
• Andrew Theurer - NetBench 
• Duc Vianney - TIOBench/IOzone, File System, Embedded Realtime, Carrier Liaison 
• Troy Wilson - SPECweb99,  SPECsdm SDET
• Peter Wong - TPC-H , DB2 and Domino Liaison