# Problem
The timeout-based batching adds latency to unbatchable workloads.
We can choose a short batching timeout (e.g. 10us) but that requires
high-resolution timers, which tokio doesn't have.
I thoroughly explored options to use OS timers (see
[this](https://github.com/neondatabase/neon/pull/9822) abandoned PR).
In short, it's not an attractive option because any timer implementation
adds non-trivial overheads.
# Solution
The insight is that, in the steady state of a batchable workload, the
time we spend in `get_vectored` will be hundreds of microseconds anyway.
If we prepare the next batch concurrently to `get_vectored`, we will
have a sizeable batch ready once `get_vectored` of the current batch is
done and do not need an explicit timeout.
This can be reasonably described as **pipelining of the protocol
handler**.
# Implementation
We model the sub-protocol handler for pagestream requests
(`handle_pagrequests`) as two futures that form a pipeline:
2. Batching: read requests from the connection and fill the current
batch
3. Execution: `take` the current batch, execute it using `get_vectored`,
and send the response.
The Reading and Batching stage are connected through a new type of
channel called `spsc_fold`.
See the long comment in the `handle_pagerequests_pipelined` for details.
# Changes
- Refactor `handle_pagerequests`
- separate functions for
- reading one protocol message; produces a `BatchedFeMessage` with just
one page request in it
- batching; tried to merge an incoming `BatchedFeMessage` into an
existing `BatchedFeMessage`; returns `None` on success and returns back
the incoming message in case merging isn't possible
- execution of a batched message
- unify the timeline handle acquisition & request span construction; it
now happen in the function that reads the protocol message
- Implement serial and pipelined model
- serial: what we had before any of the batching changes
- read one protocol message
- execute protocol messages
- pipelined: the design described above
- optionality for execution of the pipeline: either via concurrent
futures vs tokio tasks
- Pageserver config
- remove batching timeout field
- add ability to configure pipelining mode
- add ability to limit max batch size for pipelined configurations
(required for the rollout, cf
https://github.com/neondatabase/cloud/issues/20620 )
- ability to configure execution mode
- Tests
- remove `batch_timeout` parametrization
- rename `test_getpage_merge_smoke` to `test_throughput`
- add parametrization to test different max batch sizes and execution
moes
- rename `test_timer_precision` to `test_latency`
- rename the test case file to `test_page_service_batching.py`
- better descriptions of what the tests actually do
## On the holding The `TimelineHandle` in the pending batch
While batching, we hold the `TimelineHandle` in the pending batch.
Therefore, the timeline will not finish shutting down while we're
batching.
This is not a problem in practice because the concurrently ongoing
`get_vectored` call will fail quickly with an error indicating that the
timeline is shutting down.
This results in the Execution stage returning a `QueryError::Shutdown`,
which causes the pipeline / entire page service connection to shut down.
This drops all references to the
`Arc<Mutex<Option<Box<BatchedFeMessage>>>>` object, thereby dropping the
contained `TimelineHandle`s.
- => fixes https://github.com/neondatabase/neon/issues/9850
# Performance
Local run of the benchmarks, results in [this empty
commit](1cf5b1463f)
in the PR branch.
Key take-aways:
* `concurrent-futures` and `tasks` deliver identical `batching_factor`
* tail latency impact unknown, cf
https://github.com/neondatabase/neon/issues/9837
* `concurrent-futures` has higher throughput than `tasks` in all
workloads (=lower `time` metric)
* In unbatchable workloads, `concurrent-futures` has 5% higher
`CPU-per-throughput` than that of `tasks`, and 15% higher than that of
`serial`.
* In batchable-32 workload, `concurrent-futures` has 8% lower
`CPU-per-throughput` than that of `tasks` (comparison to tput of
`serial` is irrelevant)
* in unbatchable workloads, mean and tail latencies of
`concurrent-futures` is practically identical to `serial`, whereas
`tasks` adds 20-30us of overhead
Overall, `concurrent-futures` seems like a slightly more attractive
choice.
# Rollout
This change is disabled-by-default.
Rollout plan:
- https://github.com/neondatabase/cloud/issues/20620
# Refs
- epic: https://github.com/neondatabase/neon/issues/9376
- this sub-task: https://github.com/neondatabase/neon/issues/9377
- the abandoned attempt to improve batching timeout resolution:
https://github.com/neondatabase/neon/pull/9820
- closes https://github.com/neondatabase/neon/issues/9850
- fixes https://github.com/neondatabase/neon/issues/9835
## Problem
When shutting down a Tenant, it isn't just important to cause any
background tasks to stop. It's also important to wait until they have
stopped before declaring shutdown complete, in cases where we may re-use
the tenant's local storage for something else, such as running in
secondary mode, or creating a new tenant with the same ID.
## Summary of changes
A `Gate` class is added, inspired by
[seastar::gate](https://docs.seastar.io/master/classseastar_1_1gate.html).
For types that have an important lifetime that corresponds to some
physical resource, use of a Gate as well as a CancellationToken provides
a robust pattern for async requests & shutdown:
- Requests must always acquire the gate as long as they are using the
object
- Shutdown must set the cancellation token, and then `close()` the gate
to wait for requests in progress before returning.
This is not for memory safety: it's for expressing the difference
between "Arc<Tenant> exists", and "This tenant's files on disk are
eligible to be read/written".
- Both Tenant and Timeline get a Gate & CancellationToken.
- The Timeline gate is held during eviction of layers, and during
page_service requests.
- Existing cancellation support in page_service is refined to use the
timeline-scope cancellation token instead of a process-scope
cancellation token. This replaces the use of `task_mgr::associate_with`:
tasks no longer change their tenant/timelineidentity after being
spawned.
The Tenant's Gate is not yet used, but will be important for
Tenant-scoped operations in secondary mode, where we must ensure that
our secondary-mode downloads for a tenant are gated wrt the activity of
an attached Tenant.
This is part of a broader move away from using the global-state driven
`task_mgr` shutdown tokens:
- less global state where we rely on implicit knowledge of what task a
given function is running in, and more explicit references to the
cancellation token that a particular function/type will respect, making
shutdown easier to reason about.
- eventually avoid the big global TASKS mutex.
---------
Co-authored-by: Joonas Koivunen <joonas@neon.tech>
Implement a new `struct Layer` abstraction which manages downloadness
internally, requiring no LayerMap locking or rewriting to download or
evict providing a property "you have a layer, you can read it". The new
`struct Layer` provides ability to keep the file resident via a RAII
structure for new layers which still need to be uploaded. Previous
solution solved this `RemoteTimelineClient::wait_completion` which lead
to bugs like #5639. Evicting or the final local deletion after garbage
collection is done using Arc'd value `Drop`.
With a single `struct Layer` the closed open ended `trait Layer`, `trait
PersistentLayer` and `struct RemoteLayer` are removed following noting
that compaction could be simplified by simply not using any of the
traits in between: #4839.
The new `struct Layer` is a preliminary to remove
`Timeline::layer_removal_cs` documented in #4745.
Preliminaries: #4936, #4937, #5013, #5014, #5022, #5033, #5044, #5058,
#5059, #5061, #5074, #5103, epic #5172, #5645, #5649. Related split off:
#5057, #5134.
