Laird Hariu on 6 Dec 2010 07:33:25 -0800


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Re: [PLUG] recompiling a kernel for performance


Mag,

You have a very nice computing environment in your lab.

I have  a question about your performance problem.  Do you think the simulations are compute bound or I/O bound?  The answer to that question determines the tuning possibilities.

Laird Hariu


On 12/6/2010 8:26 AM, Mag Gam wrote:
Hello All,

At our university lab we have close to 50 Redhat 5.2 servers. Each of
them with 8, 16, and some with 24 cores. Most have 64GB and some with
126GB of memory. These servers are mainly used for simulations. A
simulation may consist of a Octave, Python, R, and MATLAB process
which reads data and generates data. Each process can take 60 mins to
70 hours. I am sure there are other tuning we can do such as -- tune
I/O subsystem, tune network, etc...

Assuming all the 'low bearing fruit' have been picked would
recompiling with the latest 2.3.36 kernel help in computing speed?
Some features  interesting are:
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=e22bee782b3b00bd4534ae9b1c5fb2e8e6573c5c
(workqueue: implement concurrency managed dynamic worker pool)

To summarize, here are some new enhancements for 2.3.26
http://www.h-online.com/open/features/What-s-new-in-Linux-2-6-36-1103009.html?page=6

Also, are there any settings in the kernel I can set to enhance
performance -- According to redhat you should stick with their build
:-/
___________________________________________________________________________
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--
Laird Hariu, Managing Partner
IVAR Systems, LLC
524 Spring Hollow Lane, Media PA 19063 + 610-565-4253
lhariu@ivarsystems.net +++ http://www.ivarsystems.net


___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug