The existing transaction merge algorithm keeps track of the least upper bound
(longest common prefix) of all the nodes which have been read and written, and
will re-combine two stores which have disjoint upper bounds. This works well for
small transactions but causes unnecessary conflicts for ones that span a large
subtree, such as the following ones used by the xapi toolstack:
* VM start: creates /vm/... /vss/... /local/domain/...
The least upper bound of this transaction is / and so all
these transactions conflict with everything.
* Device hotplug: creates /local/domain/0/... /local/domain/n/...
The least upper bound of this transaction is /local/domain so
all these transactions conflict with each other.
If the existing merge algorithm cannot merge and commit, we attempt
a /replay/ of the failed transaction against the new store.
When we replay the requests we check whether the response sent to the client is
the same as during the first attempt at the transaction. If the responses are
all the same then the transaction replay can be committed. If any differ then
the transaction replay must be aborted and the client must retry.
This algorithm uses the intuition that the transactions made by the toolstack
are designed to be for separate domains, and should fundamentally not conflict
in the sense that they don't read or write any shared keys. By replaying the
transaction on the server side we do what the client would have to do anyway,
only we can do it quickly without allowing any other requests to interfere.
Performing 300 parallel simulated VM start and shutdowns without this code:
300 parallel starts and shutdowns: 268.92
Performing 300 parallel simulated VM start and shutdowns with this code:
300 parallel starts and shutdowns: 3.80
Signed-off-by: Dave Scott <dave@recoil.org>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Davies <jonathan.davies@citrix.com>
Reviewed-by: Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com>
Reviewed-by: Jon Ludlam <jonathan.ludlam@citrix.com>
Reviewed-by: Euan Harris <euan.harris@citrix.com>
Acked-by: David Scott <dave@recoil.org>
Previously, the functions reply_{ack,data,data_or_ack} and input_handle_error
put the response on the wire by invoking Connection.send_{ack,reply,error}.
Instead, these functions now return a value indicating what needs to be put on
the wire, and that action is done by a send_response function called
afterwards.
This refactoring gives us a chance to store the value of the response, useful
for replaying transactions.
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Davies <jonathan.davies@citrix.com>
Reviewed-by: Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com>
Reviewed-by: Jon Ludlam <jonathan.ludlam@citrix.com>
Reviewed-by: Euan Harris <euan.harris@citrix.com>
Acked-by: David Scott <dave@recoil.org>
Edwin Török
Jonathan Davies