Affinity-aware parallel zeroing of memory for initialization of large pages in non-uniform memory access (NUMA) servers

• US 10,228,737 B2
• Filed: 11/28/2017
• Issued: 03/12/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Hedge, Nikhil, Mealey, Bruce, Rogers, Mark D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Kaushikkumar M
• Application Number:
  US15/824,498
• Publication Number:
  US 20180088641A1
• Time in Patent Office: 469 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/24 Resetting means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0223 User address space allocation, e.g. contiguous or non contiguous base addressing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/023 Free address space management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/1009 using page tables, e.g. page table structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45583 Memory management, e.g. access or allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1044 Space efficiency improvement
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/2542 Non-uniform memory access [NUMA] architecture
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0602 specifically adapted to achieve a particular effect
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0629 Configuration or reconfiguration of storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0644 Management of space entities, e.g. partitions, extents, pools
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0652 Erasing, e.g. deleting, data cleaning, moving of data to a wastebasket
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0673 Single storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory

Abstract

A method for zeroing memory in computing systems where access to memory is non-uniform includes receiving, via a system call, a request for a pool of memory, determining a size of the requested pool of memory, and creating a dummy memory segment. The size of the dummy memory segment is larger than the size of the requested pool of memory. The dummy memory segment is filled with one or more pages, based on the determined size of the requested pool of memory, and the dummy memory segment is deleted.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, via a system call, a request for a pool of memory;

determining a size of the requested pool of memory;

creating a dummy memory segment, wherein a size of the dummy memory segment is larger than the size of the requested pool of memory;

filling the dummy memory segment with one or more pages, based on the determined size of the requested pool of memory; and

deleting the dummy memory segment, wherein deleting the dummy memory segment comprises;

sorting the one or more pages of the dummy memory segment according to each associated affinity domain of each page, wherein each affinity domain comprises a cluster of processors and memory local to the cluster of processors;

sending requests to zero the sorted one or more pages to one or more software threads that are attached to the respective affinity domain; and

waiting for a message, from the software threads in each affinity domain, indicating that all requests to zero have been processed before returning to a system caller of the system call.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the request for the pool of memory comprises a request to grow the pool of memory.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the size of the requested pool of memory is determined based on a size that the pool of memory is requested to grow by.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the request for the pool of memory comprises a request to create the pool of memory.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the size of the requested pool of memory is determined based on a size of the pool of memory that needs to be created.

6. A method, comprising:

receiving, via a system call, a request for a pool of memory;

determining a size of the requested pool of memory;

creating a dummy memory segment, wherein a size of the dummy memory segment is larger than the size of the requested pool of memory;

filling the dummy memory segment with one or more pages, based on the determined size of the requested pool of memory; and

deleting the dummy memory segment, wherein deleting the dummy memory segment comprises;

transmitting a request to zero the one or more pages in the dummy memory segment to an intermediate software thread;

using the intermediate software thread to perform the request as a background process, comprising;

sorting the one or more pages of the dummy memory segment according to each associated affinity domain of each page, each affinity domain comprising a cluster of processors and memory local to the cluster of processors;

sending requests to zero the sorted one or more pages to one or more additional software threads that are attached to the respective affinity domain; and

receiving, from each of the one or more additional software threads, notifications that the requests to zero the sorted one or more pages have been processed; and

upon receiving a message from the intermediate software thread, returning to a system caller, while performing the request, via the intermediate software thread, continues in the background.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the request for the pool of memory comprises a request to grow the pool of memory.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the size of the requested pool of memory is determined based on a size that the pool of memory is requested to grow by.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the request for the pool of memory comprises a request to create the pool of memory.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the size of the requested pool of memory is determined based on a size of the pool of memory that needs to be created.