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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-9634?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=14596476#comment-14596476
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Andy Tolbert commented on CASSANDRA-9634:
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Ran a test on a c3.8xlarge Windows Server 2012 R2 instance in ec2 and observed
([results|https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16uZEhin0Gpj0gJIQzjTi_f6OIfeWDIc8u_gDualI2r8/edit?usp=sharing])
that there is a noticeable improvement (9-14%) using a clock interval of 1ms
for write-based workloads. Read and 50/50 mixed workloads did not seem to be
impacted much (correlating with the description).
I was able to keep CPU pretty busy, with up to 90% utilization with 500-800
threads during writes with both clock resolutions. I could not seem to exceed
50% CPU utilization while running stress w/ read. I think by using a
linux-based stress client I was able to generate load more easily. In
addition, EC2s network throughput capabilities might have allowed me to
generate more load as well.
> Set kernel timer resolution on Windows
> --------------------------------------
>
> Key: CASSANDRA-9634
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-9634
> Project: Cassandra
> Issue Type: Improvement
> Reporter: Joshua McKenzie
> Assignee: Joshua McKenzie
> Labels: Windows, performance
> Fix For: 2.2.x
>
>
> In Windows 7/Server 2008 and to a similar extent Windows 8/Server 2012, the
> kernel's internal time is set to an interval of 15.6ms. (Use
> [clockres|https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897568.aspx] to
> confirm current 'tick rate' on Windows). Win8/Server2012 have a tickless
> kernel w/timer coalescing ([info
> here|http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/better-on-the-inside-under-the-hood-of-windows-8/2/])
> and the platform shows similar performance characteristics with C* to
> Windows 7 with a slight edge in performance to win8/server 2012 in my testing
> (the testing and results of which are outside the scope of this ticket).
> Some arguments against lowering the system's internal timer to 1ms are
> [here|https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/windows-timer-resolution-megawatts-wasted/].
> These seem largely constrained to "it'll drain your battery" and "it'll
> prevent your processor from being as effective in sleep states". The 2nd is
> somewhat of a concern as we don't want Windows users to all of a sudden have
> increased CPU-usage bills from virtualized environments. In the comments, one
> individual mentions a VirtualBox VM spinning at 10-20% cpu just from changing
> that flag alone which seems mathematically unlikely, but is worth keeping an
> eye on and testing.
> A Microsoft publication that largely reinforces the cautionary tale on power
> consumption can be found
> [here|http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/0/2/3027D574-C433-412A-A8B6-5E0A75D5B237/Timer-Resolution.docx].
> With the cautionary tales on our radar, the impact on throughput and latency
> on the 2.2 branch on Windows is [fairly
> dramatic|https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nqPhNwOVt0SU7b9lt9o4Tyl0Z1yDrV2oo7LbBPaFa6A/edit#gid=0].
> A couple of caveats on these #'s: I'm not completely saturating the system
> as the thread count is relatively low (keeping it consistent with other
> testing where it *was* saturating), and the read #'s from our 2012 test
> environment are not affected by this timer change while I see it on 3 other
> bare-metal installations. The testing environment is new and we haven't
> worked out the kinks yet, however the write / mixed illustrate the throughput
> and latency #'s I've mentioned above; for reads the cpu's are sitting idle at
> 1-5% used by stress and C* so something else clearly needs to be addressed
> there; I included them for completeness sake.
> Some preliminary testing on OpenStack indicates kernel-space syscall
> saturation w/this patch that actually *degrades* performance, however the
> unpatched performance numbers in our OpenStack environment are low enough
> that I question their validity.
> Opening this ticket w/attached branch to get it on the radar / conversation
> going, and I'm going to update this from being hard-coded to being a tunable
> in the .yaml.
> Initial patch [available
> here|https://github.com/apache/cassandra/compare/trunk...josh-mckenzie:2.2_WinTimer].
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