Re: Storage Management Enhancement Ideas (was: VM lockup due to storage typo)

2009-09-22 Thread Schuh, Richard
Now THAT would have exposed the problem. :-) Actually, he already tried that 
and the result has been this discussion.

Regards, 
Richard Schuh 

 

 I'm sure that there are a couple other ways of preventing the 
 problem, like IPL'ing the machine first and doing a Q V ALL 
 to see what resources you really did ask for, could have 
 stopped the problemif the Systems Programmer did it.


Re: Storage Management Enhancement Ideas (was: VM lockup due to storage typo)

2009-09-21 Thread John P. Baker
Bill,

You may well be correct.  Of course, that permits me to pose the question of
how such a condition could effectively be avoided.  Ideas, anyone?

John P. Baker

-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:ib...@listserv.uark.edu] On
Behalf Of Bill Holder
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 11:32 AM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: Storage Management Enhancement Ideas (was: VM lockup due to
storage typo)

These are very interesting ideas, but I suspect (no way to prove, since no
doc will be forthcoming) that the hang was not a paging issue, but rather a
central storage fragmentation issue involving attempts to allocate four
contiguous frames for region and segment tables.  Don't let me throw cold
water on the current discussion, though, I just wanted to point out that all
of the interesting paging ideas probably wouldn't help the situation that
triggered this entire discussion.

- Bill Holder, z/VM Development, IBM


Re: Storage Management Enhancement Ideas (was: VM lockup due to storage typo)

2009-09-20 Thread Rob van der Heij
On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 6:21 PM, John P. Baker jbaker...@comporium.net wrote:

 I recommend that the idea of splitting page space into multiple pools be
 considered, where individual users can be assigned to different pools.  For
 the purposes of discussion, let us consider that following enhancement:

I don't like the idea to use only a subset of your paging capacity for
part of the workload. It's not just about space but also about
throughput. This is imho a very complicated approach to exclude some
(small) important users from an OOM killer. The real question is
whether you can do an OOM killer at all and achieve something useful
by doing so.

Most performance tuning gets harder when you split resources and
consumers in different groups and manage them separately. Sharing is
easier with large numbers.

Rob
-- 
Rob van der Heij
Velocity Software
http://www.velocitysoftware.com/


Re: Storage Management Enhancement Ideas (was: VM lockup due to storage typo)

2009-09-20 Thread John P. Baker
Rob,

In many instances you would be correct.  However, in this case, the
decisions targeting a specific backing storage pool are made either at LOGON
time or during a DEFINE STORAGE command.  This is actually a very simple
approach to the problem.  Also, once the backup storage pool placement
decision is made, there should be no impact on the instruction path length.

John P. Baker

-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:ib...@listserv.uark.edu] On
Behalf Of Rob van der Heij
Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 4:26 AM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: Storage Management Enhancement Ideas (was: VM lockup due to
storage typo)

On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 6:21 PM, John P. Baker jbaker...@comporium.net
wrote:

I don't like the idea to use only a subset of your paging capacity for
part of the workload. It's not just about space but also about
throughput. This is imho a very complicated approach to exclude some
(small) important users from an OOM killer. The real question is
whether you can do an OOM killer at all and achieve something useful
by doing so.

Most performance tuning gets harder when you split resources and
consumers in different groups and manage them separately. Sharing is
easier with large numbers.

Rob
-- 
Rob van der Heij
Velocity Software
http://www.velocitysoftware.com/


Re: Storage Management Enhancement Ideas (was: VM lockup due to storage typo)

2009-09-20 Thread David Boyes
On 9/20/09 4:26 AM, Rob van der Heij rvdh...@velocitysoftware.com wrote:
 
 Most performance tuning gets harder when you split resources and
 consumers in different groups and manage them separately. Sharing is
 easier with large numbers.
 Rob

Although with SSD coming back into vogue, the idea of swap vs page (shades
of HPO) might be worth considering again. If the goal is to get a very large
number of pages out of the way quickly and/or adding some additional levels
of paging hierarchy back into CP, I can see where that would have merit. 


Storage Management Enhancement Ideas (was: VM lockup due to storage typo)

2009-09-19 Thread John P. Baker
All,

 

Since we have now beat the issue of storage management to death, I would
like to set forth some concrete ideas for consideration.

 

First, it has been pointed out that it may not currently be possible to
LOGON to MAINT or OPERATOR or to some other service machine in order to
diagnose the problem.

 

I recommend that the idea of splitting page space into multiple pools be
considered, where individual users can be assigned to different pools.  For
the purposes of discussion, let us consider that following enhancement:

 

. In the SYSTEM CONFIG file

o   DEFBACKSTGPOOL pool-id-8

o   BACKSTGPOOL pool-id-8 volser-6

. In the CP directory

o   OPTION BACKSTGPOOL pool-name-8

. Extend the CLASS B CP QUERY command

o   QUERY BACKSTGPOOL user-id-8

o   QUERY DEFBACKSTGPOOL

. Extend the CLASS B CP SET command

o   SET BACKSTGPOOL user-id-8 {DEFAULT | pool-name-8}

. Extend the CLASS G CP QUERY command

o   QUERY BACKSTGPOOL

 

Each paging volume will be allocated to a specific backing storage pool.

 

A LOGON will be rejected if the backing storage pool does not exist.

 

The SET BACKSTGPOOL command will be rejected if the backing storage pool
does not exist.

 

Second, provide a specification on whether a virtual machine requires full
backing storage for its defined memory size.

 

. In the SYSTEM CONFIG file

o   DEFBACKSTG {SYSTEM | VMSIZE}

. In the CP directory

o   OPTION BACKSTG {DEFAULT | SYSTEM | VMSIZE}

. Extend the CLASS B CP QUERY command

o   QUERY BACKSTG user-id-8

o   QUERY DEFBACKSTG

. Extend the CLASS B CP SET command

o   SET BACKSTG user-id-8 { DEFAULT | SYSTEM | VMSIZE}

. Extend the CLASS G CP QUERY command

o   QUERY BACKSTG

 

If BACKSTG is set or defaulted to SYSTEM, page allocation will continue to
operate as it does today.

 

If BACKSTG is set or defaulted to VMSIZE, there must be available within the
backing storage spool sufficient space to accommodate the entirety of the
specified VMSIZE, otherwise the LOGON, DEFINE STORAGE, or SET BACKSTG
command will be failed.

 

The SETBACKSTG command will force a virtual machine reset to occur.

 

These changes will address some of the issues raised.  I am certain that
other changes would be required, and that other ideas should be considered.
Please post your ideas.  Don't hesitate to point out any problems.

 

John P. Baker



Re: Storage Management Enhancement Ideas (was: VM lockup due to storage typo)

2009-09-19 Thread Rich Smrcina

Nicely written

John P. Baker wrote:


All,

Since we have now beat the issue of storage management to death, I 
would like to set forth some concrete ideas for consideration.


First, it has been pointed out that it may not currently be possible 
to LOGON to MAINT or OPERATOR or to some other service machine in 
order to diagnose the problem.


I recommend that the idea of splitting page space into multiple pools 
be considered, where individual users can be assigned to different 
pools. For the purposes of discussion, let us consider that following 
enhancement:


· In the SYSTEM CONFIG file

o DEFBACKSTGPOOL pool-id-8

o BACKSTGPOOL pool-id-8 volser-6

· In the CP directory

o OPTION BACKSTGPOOL pool-name-8

· Extend the CLASS B CP QUERY command

o QUERY BACKSTGPOOL user-id-8

o QUERY DEFBACKSTGPOOL

· Extend the CLASS B CP SET command

o SET BACKSTGPOOL user-id-8 {DEFAULT | pool-name-8}

· Extend the CLASS G CP QUERY command

o QUERY BACKSTGPOOL

Each paging volume will be allocated to a specific backing storage pool.

A LOGON will be rejected if the backing storage pool does not exist.

The SET BACKSTGPOOL command will be rejected if the backing storage 
pool does not exist.


Second, provide a specification on whether a virtual machine requires 
full backing storage for its defined memory size.


· In the SYSTEM CONFIG file

o DEFBACKSTG {SYSTEM | VMSIZE}

· In the CP directory

o OPTION BACKSTG {DEFAULT | SYSTEM | VMSIZE}

· Extend the CLASS B CP QUERY command

o QUERY BACKSTG user-id-8

o QUERY DEFBACKSTG

· Extend the CLASS B CP SET command

o SET BACKSTG user-id-8 { DEFAULT | SYSTEM | VMSIZE}

· Extend the CLASS G CP QUERY command

o QUERY BACKSTG

If BACKSTG is set or defaulted to SYSTEM, page allocation will 
continue to operate as it does today.


If BACKSTG is set or defaulted to VMSIZE, there must be available 
within the backing storage spool sufficient space to accommodate the 
entirety of the specified VMSIZE, otherwise the LOGON, DEFINE STORAGE, 
or SET BACKSTG command will be failed.


The SETBACKSTG command will force a virtual machine reset to occur.

These changes will address some of the issues raised. I am certain 
that other changes would be required, and that other ideas should be 
considered. Please post your ideas. Don’t hesitate to point out any 
problems.


John P. Baker




--
Rich Smrcina
Phone: 414-491-6001
http://www.linkedin.com/in/richsmrcina

Catch the WAVV! http://www.wavv.org
WAVV 2010 - Apr 9-14, 2010 Covington, KY


Re: Storage Management Enhancement Ideas (was: VM lockup due to storage typo)

2009-09-19 Thread John P. Baker
Rich,

Something else that comes to mind is that page space spills into spool space
when page space fills up.

It may be worth considering to provide system configuration options (both a
default and for each backing storage pool) that would determine whether page
over-allocation could be spilled into spool space.

John P. Baker

-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:ib...@listserv.uark.edu] On
Behalf Of Rich Smrcina
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2009 1:19 PM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: Storage Management Enhancement Ideas (was: VM lockup due to
storage typo)

Nicely written

-- 
Rich Smrcina
Phone: 414-491-6001
http://www.linkedin.com/in/richsmrcina

Catch the WAVV! http://www.wavv.org
WAVV 2010 - Apr 9-14, 2010 Covington, KY