Measurement facility for adapter functions

• US 8,650,335 B2
• Filed: 06/23/2010
• Issued: 02/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/23/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Brice, Frank W. Jr., Craddock, David, Glendening, Beth A., Gregg, Thomas A., Lais, Eric N., Szwed, Peter K., Wilkins, Steven G.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tsai, Henry
• Assistant Examiner(s): OBERLY, ERIC T
• Application Number:
  US12/821,193
• Publication Number:
  US 20110320643A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,329 Days
• Field of Search: 710/20
• US Class Current: 710/20
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/349 for interfaces, buses
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/865 Monitoring of software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/88 Monitoring involving counting

Abstract

A measurement facility is provided for capturing and presenting fine-grained usage information for adapter functions in an input/output subsystem. Adapter specific input/output traffic is tracked on a per function basis and the results are dynamically presented to the user. This information is useful for performance tuning, load balancing and usage based charging, as examples.

Claims

1. A computer program product for measuring resource usage in a computing environment, said computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method comprising;

selectively registering a PCI function for measurement, the selectively registering comprising executing a Modify PCI Function Controls (MPFC) instruction to register the PCI function for measurement, the PCI function being identified in the MPFC instruction by a function handle, the function handle comprising a function number identifying the PCI function, the function number configured to address the PCI function and to index into a function table that includes one or more characteristics of the PCI function, and wherein the MPFC instruction specifies a location in memory for tracking information for the PCI function;

determining that the PCI function is a (a) being accessed via an instruction or (b) requesting access of system memory coupled to the PCI function;

tracking information specific to the PCI function, wherein the tracked information comprises a count of determined accessing instructions or a count of determined requested accesses to memory, and wherein the tracked information is on a per-function basis; and

storing the tracked information in the location in memory.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the determining determines that the PCI function is being accessed by an instruction, and wherein the tracking further comprises:

determining a type of the instruction, wherein there are a plurality of types of instructions; and

updating a counter provided exclusively for that type of instruction and for the PCI function, wherein another counter is provided for another type of instruction for the PCI function.

3. The computer program product of claim 2, wherein there are a plurality of types of instructions including a PCI Load instruction, a PCI Store instruction, a PCI Store Block instruction, a PCI Modify instruction to perform a modify operation for the PCI function, and a PCI Refresh Translation instruction to update translation information used by the PCI function, each of which is specifically used to access the PCI function.

4. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the determining determines that the PCI function is requesting a memory access operation, and wherein the tracking further comprises:

determining a type of memory access operation; and

updating a counter provided exclusively for the PCI function and that type of memory access operation.

5. The computer program product of claim 4, wherein there are a plurality of types of memory access operations including a read access and a write access.

6. The computer program product of claim 4, wherein the PCI function has a plurality of address spaces assigned thereto, and wherein the counter is specific to one address space of the plurality of address spaces.

7. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the tracking comprises updating one or more counters, and wherein the one or more counters are specific to the PCI function and reflect input/output traffic associated with the PCI function.

8. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises automatically presenting the tracked information to a user.

9. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the tracking comprises updating one or more counters, and wherein the automatically presenting comprises periodically updating a control block accessible to the user with values from the one or more counters.

10. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises determining whether tracking is to be performed for the PCI function, wherein tracking is enabled on a per-function basis, and performing the tracking based on determining that tracking is to be performed.

11. A computer system for measuring resource usage in a computing environment, said computer system comprising:

a memory; and

a processor in communications with the memory, wherein the computer system is configured to perform a method, said method comprising;

selectively registering a PCI function for measurement, the selectively registering comprising executing a Modify PCI Function Controls (MPFC) instruction to register the PCI function for measurement, the PCI function being identified in the MPFC instruction by a function handle, the function handle comprising a function number identifying the PCI function, the function number configured to address the PCI function and to index into a function table that includes one or more characteristics of the PCI function, and wherein the MPFC instruction specifies a location in memory for tracking information for the PCI function;

determining that the PCI function is (a) being accessed via an instruction or (b) requesting access of system memory coupled to the PCI function;

tracking information specific to the PCI function, wherein the tracked information comprises a count of determined accessing instructions or a count of determined requested accesses to memory, and wherein the tracked information is on a per-function basis; and

storing the tracked information in the location in memory.

12. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the determining determines that the PCI function is being accessed by an instruction, and wherein the tracking further comprises:

determining a type of the instruction; and

updating a counter provided exclusively for that type of instruction and for the PCI function.

13. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the determining determines that the PCI function is requesting a memory access operation, and wherein the tracking further comprises:

determining a type of memory access operation; and

updating a counter provided exclusively for the PCI function and that type of memory access operation.

14. The computer system of claim 13, wherein the PCI function has a plurality of address spaces assigned thereto, and wherein the counter is specific to one address space of the plurality of address spaces.

15. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the method further comprises automatically presenting the tracked information to a user.

16. The computer system of claim 15, wherein the tracking comprises updating one or more counters, and wherein the automatically presenting comprises periodically updating a control block accessible to the user with values from the one or more counters.

17. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the method further comprises determining whether tracking is to be performed for the PCI function, wherein tracking is enabled on a per-function basis, and performing the tracking based on determining that tracking is to be performed.

18. A method of measuring resource usage in a computing environment, said method comprising:

selectively registering a PCI function for measurement, the selectively registering comprising executing, by a component of the computing environment, a Modify PCI Function Controls (MPFC) instruction to register the PCI function for measurement, the PCI function being identified in the MPFC instruction by a function handle, the function handle comprising a function number identifying the PCI function, the function number configured to address the PCI function and to index into a function table that includes one or more characteristics of the PCI function, and wherein the MPFC instruction specifies a location in memory for tracking information for the PCI function;

determining, by the component, that the PCI function is (a) being accessed via an instruction or (b) requesting access of system memory coupled to the PCI function;

tracking, by the component, information specific to the PCI function, wherein the tracked information comprises a count of determined accessing instructions or a count of determined requested accesses to memory, and wherein the tracked information is on a per-function basis; and

storing the tracked information in the location in memory.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the component is a processor and said processor determines that the PCI function is being accessed by an instruction, and wherein the tracking further comprises:

determining a type of the instruction; and

updating a counter provided exclusively for that type of instruction and for the PCI function.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the component is an input/output (I/O) hub of the computing environment and said I/O hub determines that the PCI function is requesting a memory access operation, and wherein the tracking further comprises:

determining a type of memory access operation; and

updating a counter provided exclusively for the PCI function and that type of memory access operation.