Fine Grained Adaptive Throttling of Background Processes

• US 20130239114A1
• Filed: 03/07/2012
• Published: 09/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SanDisk Technologies LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: SanDisk Enterprise IP LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Inventors: Dinker, Darpan
• Granted Patent: US 9,135,064 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/504 Resource capping
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4881 Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/50 Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5011 the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Approaches for throttling backgrounds processes to a high degree of precision. The utilization of a shared resource that is used by one or more background processes is monitored. A frequency at which the one or more background processes are executed is dynamically adjusted based on the current utilization of the shared resource without adjusting the frequency in which one or more foreground processes are executed to ensure that the utilization of the shared resource does not exceed a threshold value. The monitoring of the utilization of the shared resource may be performed more often than the adjusted of the frequency at which the background processes are executed, and the utilization of the shared resources may be performed many times a second. Consequently, the utilization of the shared resource may be above a certain level (such as 65%) and less than another level, such as 90%, when background processes are executing.

Claims

1. One or more computer readable tangible storage mediums storing one or more sequences of instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause:

monitoring a utilization for a shared resource that is used by one or more background processes; and

dynamically adjusting a frequency at which the one or more background processes are executed based on a current utilization of the shared resource, without adjusting the frequency in which one or more foreground processes are executed, to ensure that the utilization of the shared resource does not exceed a threshold value.

2. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein monitoring is performed at least five hundred times each second.

3. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein monitoring is performed at least one thousand times each second.

4. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein monitoring is performed at least ten times as often as dynamically adjusting is performed.

5. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein monitoring is performed at least one hundred times as often as dynamically adjusting is performed.

6. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein dynamically adjusting is performed at least eight times a second.

7. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein the threshold value is a particular value in a range of 80% to 90% of the utilization capacity of the shared resource.

8. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein the threshold value is a first threshold value, and wherein the first threshold value is dynamically updated, without user input, to ensure that the utilization of the shared resource does not exceed a second threshold value greater than the first threshold value.

9. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein each of the one or more background processes is a process designed to run in the background to perform a supportive function to a foreground process, and wherein each of the one or more foreground processes is a process that interacts with a user, performs application level activity, or provides functionality central to the role of a device upon which the process executes.

10. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein the shared resource is one or more central processing units (CPUs).

11. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein the shared resource is memory.

12. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein the shared resource is persistent storage.

13. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein the shared resource is a network resource.

14. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, dynamically adjusting a block size of data copied by a background process based upon the utilization for a shared resource.

15. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein monitoring the utilization for the shared resource comprises accessing a statistics information file implemented by an operating system.

16. The one or more computer readable tangible storage mediums of claim 1, wherein execution of the one or more sequences of instructions, which when executed, further cause the utilization of the shared resource to be at least 65% when the one or more background processes are executing.

17. One or more computer readable tangible storage mediums storing one or more sequences of instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause:

monitoring a utilization for a shared resource that is used by a background process; and

dynamically adjusting a block size of data copied by the background process based upon the utilization for a shared resource.

18. A method for throttling backgrounds processes to a high degree of precision, comprising:

monitoring a utilization for a shared resource that is used by one or more background processes; and

dynamically adjusting a frequency at which the one or more background processes are executed based on a current utilization of the shared resource, without adjusting the frequency in which one or more foreground processes are executed, to ensure that the utilization of the shared resource does not exceed a threshold value.

19. An apparatus, comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more computer readable storage medium storing one or more sequences, which when executed by the one or more processors, cause;

monitoring a utilization for a shared resource that is used by one or more background processes; and

dynamically adjusting a frequency at which the one or more background processes are executed based on a current utilization of the shared resource, without adjusting the frequency in which one or more foreground processes are executed, to ensure that the utilization of the shared resource does not exceed a threshold value.

20. An apparatus, comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more computer readable storage medium storing one or more sequences, which when executed by the one or more processors, cause;

monitoring a utilization for a shared resource that is used by a background process; and

dynamically adjusting a block size of data copied by the background process based upon the utilization for a shared resource.