Ignore:
Timestamp:
Nov 30, 2017, 3:05:21 PM (6 years ago)
Author:
Thierry Delisle <tdelisle@…>
Branches:
ADT, aaron-thesis, arm-eh, ast-experimental, cleanup-dtors, deferred_resn, demangler, enum, forall-pointer-decay, jacob/cs343-translation, jenkins-sandbox, master, new-ast, new-ast-unique-expr, new-env, no_list, persistent-indexer, pthread-emulation, qualifiedEnum, resolv-new, with_gc
Children:
3d560060
Parents:
f0743a7
Message:

Final version of my thesis before display

Location:
doc/proposals/concurrency/text
Files:
3 edited

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  • doc/proposals/concurrency/text/concurrency.tex

    rf0743a7 rdd9b59e  
    253253}
    254254\end{cfacode}
    255 There are two details to note here. First, the \code{signal} is a delayed operation, it only unblocks the waiting thread when it reaches the end of the critical section. This semantic is needed to respect mutual-exclusion, i.e., the signaller and signalled thread cannot be in the monitor simultaneously. The alternative is to return immediately after the call to \code{signal}, which is significantly more restrictive. Second, in \CFA, while it is common to store a \code{condition} as a field of the monitor, a \code{condition} variable can be stored/created independently of a monitor. Here routine \code{foo} waits for the \code{signal} from \code{bar} before making further progress, effectively ensuring a basic ordering.
    256 
    257 An important aspect of the implementation is that \CFA does not allow barging, which means that once function \code{bar} releases the monitor, \code{foo} is guaranteed to resume immediately after (unless some other thread waited on the same condition). This guarantee offers the benefit of not having to loop around waits to recheck that a condition is met. The main reason \CFA offers this guarantee is that users can easily introduce barging if it becomes a necessity but adding barging prevention or barging avoidance is more involved without language support. Supporting barging prevention as well as extending internal scheduling to multiple monitors is the main source of complexity in the design of \CFA concurrency.
     255There are two details to note here. First, the \code{signal} is a delayed operation, it only unblocks the waiting thread when it reaches the end of the critical section. This semantic is needed to respect mutual-exclusion, i.e., the signaller and signalled thread cannot be in the monitor simultaneously. The alternative is to return immediately after the call to \code{signal}, which is significantly more restrictive. Second, in \CFA, while it is common to store a \code{condition} as a field of the monitor, a \code{condition} variable can be stored/created independently of a monitor. Here routine \code{foo} waits for the \code{signal} from \code{bar} before making further progress, ensuring a basic ordering.
     256
     257An important aspect of the implementation is that \CFA does not allow barging, which means that once function \code{bar} releases the monitor, \code{foo} is guaranteed to resume immediately after (unless some other thread waited on the same condition). This guarantee offers the benefit of not having to loop around waits to recheck that a condition is met. The main reason \CFA offers this guarantee is that users can easily introduce barging if it becomes a necessity but adding barging prevention or barging avoidance is more involved without language support. Supporting barging prevention as well as extending internal scheduling to multiple monitors is the main source of complexity in the design and implementation of \CFA concurrency.
    258258
    259259% ======================================================================
    … …  
    297297\end{pseudo}
    298298\end{multicols}
    299 This version uses \gls{bulk-acq} (denoted using the {\sf\&} symbol), but the presence of multiple monitors does not add a particularly new meaning. Synchronization happens between the two threads in exactly the same way and order. The only difference is that mutual exclusion covers more monitors. On the implementation side, handling multiple monitors does add a degree of complexity as the next few examples demonstrate.
     299\noindent This version uses \gls{bulk-acq} (denoted using the {\sf\&} symbol), but the presence of multiple monitors does not add a particularly new meaning. Synchronization happens between the two threads in exactly the same way and order. The only difference is that mutual exclusion covers a group of monitors. On the implementation side, handling multiple monitors does add a degree of complexity as the next few examples demonstrate.
    300300
    301301While deadlock issues can occur when nesting monitors, these issues are only a symptom of the fact that locks, and by extension monitors, are not perfectly composable. For monitors, a well-known deadlock problem is the Nested Monitor Problem~\cite{Lister77}, which occurs when a \code{wait} is made by a thread that holds more than one monitor. For example, the following pseudo-code runs into the nested-monitor problem :
    … …  
    319319\end{pseudo}
    320320\end{multicols}
    321 The \code{wait} only releases monitor \code{B} so the signalling thread cannot acquire monitor \code{A} to get to the \code{signal}. Attempting release of all acquired monitors at the \code{wait} introduces a different set of problems, such as releasing monitor \code{C}, which has nothing to do with the \code{signal}.
     321\noindent The \code{wait} only releases monitor \code{B} so the signalling thread cannot acquire monitor \code{A} to get to the \code{signal}. Attempting release of all acquired monitors at the \code{wait} introduces a different set of problems, such as releasing monitor \code{C}, which has nothing to do with the \code{signal}.
    322322
    323323However, for monitors as for locks, it is possible to write a program using nesting without encountering any problems if nesting is done correctly. For example, the next pseudo-code snippet acquires monitors {\sf A} then {\sf B} before waiting, while only acquiring {\sf B} when signalling, effectively avoiding the Nested Monitor Problem~\cite{Lister77}.
    … …  
    343343\end{multicols}
    344344
    345 This simple refactoring may not be possible, forcing more complex restructuring.
     345\noindent However, this simple refactoring may not be possible, forcing more complex restructuring.
    346346
    347347% ======================================================================
    … …  
    351351% ======================================================================
    352352
    353 A larger example is presented to show complex issues for \gls{bulk-acq} and all the implementation options are analyzed. Listing \ref{lst:int-bulk-pseudo} shows an example where \gls{bulk-acq} adds a significant layer of complexity to the internal signalling semantics, and listing \ref{lst:int-bulk-cfa} shows the corresponding \CFA code to implement the pseudo-code in listing \ref{lst:int-bulk-pseudo}. For the purpose of translating the given pseudo-code into \CFA-code, any method of introducing a monitor is acceptable, e.g., \code{mutex} parameters, global variables, pointer parameters or using locals with the \code{mutex}-statement.
     353A larger example is presented to show complex issues for \gls{bulk-acq} and all the implementation options are analyzed. Listing \ref{lst:int-bulk-pseudo} shows an example where \gls{bulk-acq} adds a significant layer of complexity to the internal signalling semantics, and listing \ref{lst:int-bulk-cfa} shows the corresponding \CFA code to implement the pseudo-code in listing \ref{lst:int-bulk-pseudo}. For the purpose of translating the given pseudo-code into \CFA-code, any method of introducing a monitor is acceptable, e.g., \code{mutex} parameters, global variables, pointer parameters, or using locals with the \code{mutex}-statement.
    354354
    355355\begin{figure}[!t]
    … …  
    376376                |\label{line:signal1}|signal A & B
    377377                //Code Section 7
    378         release A & B
     378        |\label{line:releaseFirst}|release A & B
    379379        //Code Section 8
    380380|\label{line:lastRelease}|release A
    … …  
    446446\end{figure}
    447447
    448 The complexity begins at code sections 4 and 8, which are where the existing semantics of internal scheduling needs to be extended for multiple monitors. The root of the problem is that \gls{bulk-acq} is used in a context where one of the monitors is already acquired and is why it is important to define the behaviour of the previous pseudo-code. When the signaller thread reaches the location where it should ``release \code{A & B}'' (listing \ref{lst:int-bulk-pseudo} line \ref{line:signal1}), it must actually transfer ownership of monitor \code{B} to the waiting thread. This ownership transfer is required in order to prevent barging into \code{B} by another thread, since both the signalling and signalled threads still need monitor \code{A}. There are three options.
     448The complexity begins at code sections 4 and 8 in listing \ref{lst:int-bulk-pseudo}, which are where the existing semantics of internal scheduling needs to be extended for multiple monitors. The root of the problem is that \gls{bulk-acq} is used in a context where one of the monitors is already acquired and is why it is important to define the behaviour of the previous pseudo-code. When the signaller thread reaches the location where it should ``release \code{A & B}'' (listing \ref{lst:int-bulk-pseudo} line \ref{line:releaseFirst}), it must actually transfer ownership of monitor \code{B} to the waiting thread. This ownership transfer is required in order to prevent barging into \code{B} by another thread, since both the signalling and signalled threads still need monitor \code{A}. There are three options.
    449449
    450450\subsubsection{Delaying Signals}
    451 The obvious solution to solve the problem of multi-monitor scheduling is to keep ownership of all locks until the last lock is ready to be transferred. It can be argued that that moment is when the last lock is no longer needed because this semantics fits most closely to the behaviour of single-monitor scheduling. This solution has the main benefit of transferring ownership of groups of monitors, which simplifies the semantics from multiple objects to a single group of objects, effectively making the existing single-monitor semantic viable by simply changing monitors to monitor groups. The naive approach to this solution is to only release monitors once every monitor in a group can be released. However, since some monitors are never released (i.e., the monitor of a thread), this interpretation means groups can grow but may never shrink. A more interesting interpretation is to only transfer groups as one but to recreate the groups on every operation, i.e., limit ownership transfer to one per \code{signal}/\code{release}.
    452 
    453 However, this solution can become much more complicated depending on what is executed while secretly holding B (listing \ref{lst:int-secret} line \ref{line:secret}).
    454 The goal in this solution is to avoid the need to transfer ownership of a subset of the condition monitors. However, listing \ref{lst:dependency} shows a slightly different example where a third thread is waiting on monitor \code{A}, using a different condition variable. Because the third thread is signalled when secretly holding \code{B}, the goal  becomes unreachable. Depending on the order of signals (listing \ref{lst:dependency} line \ref{line:signal-ab} and \ref{line:signal-a}) two cases can happen :
     451The obvious solution to solve the problem of multi-monitor scheduling is to keep ownership of all locks until the last lock is ready to be transferred. It can be argued that that moment is when the last lock is no longer needed because this semantics fits most closely to the behaviour of single-monitor scheduling. This solution has the main benefit of transferring ownership of groups of monitors, which simplifies the semantics from multiple objects to a single group of objects, effectively making the existing single-monitor semantic viable by simply changing monitors to monitor groups. This solution releases the monitors once every monitor in a group can be released. However, since some monitors are never released (i.e., the monitor of a thread), this interpretation means a group might never be released. A more interesting interpretation is to transfer the group until it can be disbanded, which means the group is not passed further and a thread can retain its locks.
     452
     453However, listing \ref{lst:int-secret} shows this solution can become much more complicated depending on what is executed while secretly holding B at line \ref{line:secret}, while avoiding the need to transfer ownership of a subset of the condition monitors. Listing \ref{lst:dependency} shows a slightly different example where a third thread is waiting on monitor \code{A}, using a different condition variable. Because the third thread is signalled when secretly holding \code{B}, the goal  becomes unreachable. Depending on the order of signals (listing \ref{lst:dependency} line \ref{line:signal-ab} and \ref{line:signal-a}) two cases can happen :
    455454
    456455\paragraph{Case 1: thread $\alpha$ goes first.} In this case, the problem is that monitor \code{A} needs to be passed to thread $\beta$ when thread $\alpha$ is done with it.
    … …  
    460459Note that ordering is not determined by a race condition but by whether signalled threads are enqueued in FIFO or FILO order. However, regardless of the answer, users can move line \ref{line:signal-a} before line \ref{line:signal-ab} and get the reverse effect for listing \ref{lst:dependency}.
    461460
    462 In both cases, the threads need to be able to distinguish, on a per monitor basis, which ones need to be released and which ones need to be transferred, which means monitors cannot be handled as a single homogeneous group and therefore effectively precludes this approach.
     461In both cases, the threads need to be able to distinguish, on a per monitor basis, which ones need to be released and which ones need to be transferred, which means knowing when to dispand a group becomes complex and inefficient (see next section) and therefore effectively precludes this approach.
    463462
    464463\subsubsection{Dependency graphs}
    … …  
    502501\end{figure}
    503502
    504 In the listing \ref{lst:int-bulk-pseudo} pseudo-code, there is a solution that satisfies both barging prevention and mutual exclusion. If ownership of both monitors is transferred to the waiter when the signaller releases \code{A & B} and then the waiter transfers back ownership of \code{A} back to the signaller when it releases it, then the problem is solved (\code{B} is no longer in use at this point). Dynamically finding the correct order is therefore the second possible solution. The problem is effectively resolving a dependency graph of ownership requirements. Here even the simplest of code snippets requires two transfers and it seems to increase in a manner close to polynomial. This complexity explosion can be seen in listing \ref{lst:explosion}, which is just a direct extension to three monitors, requires at least three ownership transfer and has multiple solutions. Furthermore, the presence of multiple solutions for ownership transfer can cause deadlock problems if a specific solution is not consistently picked; In the same way that multiple lock acquiring order can cause deadlocks.
     503In listing \ref{lst:int-bulk-pseudo}, there is a solution that satisfies both barging prevention and mutual exclusion. If ownership of both monitors is transferred to the waiter when the signaller releases \code{A & B} and then the waiter transfers back ownership of \code{A} back to the signaller when it releases it, then the problem is solved (\code{B} is no longer in use at this point). Dynamically finding the correct order is therefore the second possible solution. The problem is effectively resolving a dependency graph of ownership requirements. Here even the simplest of code snippets requires two transfers and it seems to increase in a manner close to polynomial. This complexity explosion can be seen in listing \ref{lst:explosion}, which is just a direct extension to three monitors, requires at least three ownership transfer and has multiple solutions. Furthermore, the presence of multiple solutions for ownership transfer can cause deadlock problems if a specific solution is not consistently picked; In the same way that multiple lock acquiring order can cause deadlocks.
    505504\begin{figure}
    506505\begin{multicols}{2}
    … …  
    531530\end{figure}
    532531
    533 Listing \ref{lst:dependency} is the three threads example used in the delayed signals solution. Figure \ref{fig:dependency} shows the corresponding dependency graph that results, where every node is a statement of one of the three threads, and the arrows the dependency of that statement (e.g., $\alpha1$ must happen before $\alpha2$). The extra challenge is that this dependency graph is effectively post-mortem, but the runtime system needs to be able to build and solve these graphs as the dependency unfolds. Resolving dependency graphs being a complex and expensive endeavour, this solution is not the preferred one.
     532Given the three threads example in listing \ref{lst:dependency}, figure \ref{fig:dependency} shows the corresponding dependency graph that results, where every node is a statement of one of the three threads, and the arrows the dependency of that statement (e.g., $\alpha1$ must happen before $\alpha2$). The extra challenge is that this dependency graph is effectively post-mortem, but the runtime system needs to be able to build and solve these graphs as the dependency unfolds. Resolving dependency graphs being a complex and expensive endeavour, this solution is not the preferred one.
    534533
    535534\subsubsection{Partial Signalling} \label{partial-sig}
    536535Finally, the solution that is chosen for \CFA is to use partial signalling. Again using listing \ref{lst:int-bulk-pseudo}, the partial signalling solution transfers ownership of monitor \code{B} at lines \ref{line:signal1} to the waiter but does not wake the waiting thread since it is still using monitor \code{A}. Only when it reaches line \ref{line:lastRelease} does it actually wake up the waiting thread. This solution has the benefit that complexity is encapsulated into only two actions, passing monitors to the next owner when they should be released and conditionally waking threads if all conditions are met. This solution has a much simpler implementation than a dependency graph solving algorithms, which is why it was chosen. Furthermore, after being fully implemented, this solution does not appear to have any significant downsides.
    537536
    538 While listing \ref{lst:dependency} is a complicated problem for previous solutions, it can be solved easily with partial signalling :
     537Using partial signalling, listing \ref{lst:dependency} can be solved easily :
    539538\begin{itemize}
    540539        \item When thread $\gamma$ reaches line \ref{line:release-ab} it transfers monitor \code{B} to thread $\alpha$ and continues to hold monitor \code{A}.
    541540        \item When thread $\gamma$ reaches line \ref{line:release-a}  it transfers monitor \code{A} to thread $\beta$  and wakes it up.
    542541        \item When thread $\beta$  reaches line \ref{line:release-aa} it transfers monitor \code{A} to thread $\alpha$ and wakes it up.
    543         \item Problem solved!
    544542\end{itemize}
    545543
    … …  
    775773
    776774The alternative is to alter the implementation like this:
    777 
    778775\begin{center}
    779776{\resizebox{0.4\textwidth}{!}{\input{ext_monitor}}}
    780777\end{center}
    781 
    782778Here, the mutex routine called is associated with a thread on the entry queue while a list of acceptable routines is kept separate. Generating a mask dynamically means that the storage for the mask information can vary between calls to \code{waitfor}, allowing for more flexibility and extensions. Storing an array of accepted function pointers replaces the single instruction bitmask comparison with dereferencing a pointer followed by a linear search. Furthermore, supporting nested external scheduling (e.g., listing \ref{lst:nest-ext}) may now require additional searches for the \code{waitfor} statement to check if a routine is already queued.
    783779
    … …  
    799795Note that in the second picture, tasks need to always keep track of the monitors associated with mutex routines, and the routine mask needs to have both a function pointer and a set of monitors, as is discussed in the next section. These details are omitted from the picture for the sake of simplicity.
    800796
    801 At this point, a decision must be made between flexibility and performance. Many design decisions \CFA achieve both flexibility and performance, for example polymorphic routines add significant flexibility but inlining them means the optimizer can easily remove any runtime cost. Here, however, the cost of flexibility cannot be trivially removed. In the end, the most flexible approach has been chosen since it allows users to write programs that would otherwise be  hard to write. This decision is based on the assumption that writing fast but inflexible locks is closer to a solved problem than writing locks that are as flexible as external scheduling in \CFA.
     797At this point, a decision must be made between flexibility and performance. Many design decisions in \CFA achieve both flexibility and performance, for example polymorphic routines add significant flexibility but inlining them means the optimizer can easily remove any runtime cost. Here, however, the cost of flexibility cannot be trivially removed. In the end, the most flexible approach has been chosen since it allows users to write programs that would otherwise be  hard to write. This decision is based on the assumption that writing fast but inflexible locks is closer to a solved problem than writing locks that are as flexible as external scheduling in \CFA.
    802798
    803799% ======================================================================

  • doc/proposals/concurrency/text/frontpgs.tex

    rf0743a7 rdd9b59e  
    8080\begin{center}\textbf{Abstract}\end{center}
    8181
    82 \CFA is a modern, non-object-oriented extension of the C programming language. This thesis serves as a definition and an implementation for the concurrency and parallelism \CFA offers. These features are created from scratch due to the lack of concurrency in ISO C. Monitors are introduced as a high-level tool for control-flow based concurrency. In addition, lightweight threads are also introduced into the language. Specifically, the contribution of this thesis is two-fold: it extends the existing semantics of monitors introduce by~\cite{Hoare74} to handle monitors in groups and also details the engineering effort needed to introduce these features as core language features. Indeed, these features are added in respect with expectations of C programmers and are backwards compatible as much as possible.
     82\CFA is a modern, non-object-oriented extension of the C programming language. This thesis serves as a definition and an implementation for the concurrency and parallelism \CFA offers. These features are created from scratch due to the lack of concurrency in ISO C. Lightweight threads are introduced into the language. In addition, monitors are introduced as a high-level tool for control-flow based synchronization and mutual-exclusion. The main contributions of this thesis are two-fold: it extends the existing semantics of monitors introduce by~\cite{Hoare74} to handle monitors in groups and also details the engineering effort needed to introduce these features as core language features. Indeed, these features are added with respect to expectations of C programmers, and integrate with the \CFA type-system and other language features.
    8383
    8484

  • doc/proposals/concurrency/text/future.tex

    rf0743a7 rdd9b59e  
    11
    22\chapter{Conclusion}
    3 As mentioned in the introduction, this thesis provides a minimal concurrency \acrshort{api} that is simple, efficient and usable as the basis for higher-level features. The approach presented is based on a lightweight thread system for parallelism which sits on top of clusters of processors. This M:N model is judged to be both more efficient and allow more flexibility for users. Furthermore, this document introduces monitors as the main concurrency tool for users. This thesis also offers a novel approach which allows using multiple monitors at once without running into the Nested Monitor Problem~\cite{Lister77}. It also offers a full implementation of the concurrency runtime written entirely in \CFA, effectively the largest \CFA code base to date.
     3This thesis has achieved a minimal concurrency \acrshort{api} that is simple, efficient and usable as the basis for higher-level features. The approach presented is based on a lightweight thread-system for parallelism, which sits on top of clusters of processors. This M:N model is judged to be both more efficient and allow more flexibility for users. Furthermore, this document introduces monitors as the main concurrency tool for users. This thesis also offers a novel approach allowing multiple monitors to be accessed simultaneously without running into the Nested Monitor Problem~\cite{Lister77}. It also offers a full implementation of the concurrency runtime written entirely in \CFA, effectively the largest \CFA code base to date.
    44
    55
    … …  
    1111
    1212\subsection{Performance} \label{futur:perf}
    13 This thesis presents a first implementation of the \CFA runtime. Therefore, there is still significant work to do to improve performance. Many of the data structures and algorithms will change in the future to more efficient versions. For example, \CFA the number of monitors in a single \gls{bulk-acq} is only bound by the stack size, this is probably unnecessarily generous. It may be possible that limiting the number help increase performance. However, it is not obvious that the benefit would be significant.
     13This thesis presents a first implementation of the \CFA runtime. Therefore, there is still significant work to improve performance. Many of the data structures and algorithms may change in the future to more efficient versions. For example, the number of monitors in a single \gls{bulk-acq} is only bound by the stack size, this is probably unnecessarily generous. It may be possible that limiting the number helps increase performance. However, it is not obvious that the benefit would be significant.
    1414
    1515\subsection{Flexible Scheduling} \label{futur:sched}
    16 An important part of concurrency is scheduling. Different scheduling algorithms can affect performance (both in terms of average and variation). However, no single scheduler is optimal for all workloads and therefore there is value in being able to change the scheduler for given programs. One solution is to offer various tweaking options to users, allowing the scheduler to be adjusted to the requirements of the workload. However, in order to be truly flexible, it would be interesting to allow users to add arbitrary data and arbitrary scheduling algorithms to the scheduler. For example, a web server could attach Type-of-Service information to threads and have a ``ToS aware'' scheduling algorithm tailored to this specific web server. This path of flexible schedulers will be explored for \CFA.
     16An important part of concurrency is scheduling. Different scheduling algorithms can affect performance (both in terms of average and variation). However, no single scheduler is optimal for all workloads and therefore there is value in being able to change the scheduler for given programs. One solution is to offer various tweaking options to users, allowing the scheduler to be adjusted to the requirements of the workload. However, in order to be truly flexible, it would be interesting to allow users to add arbitrary data and arbitrary scheduling algorithms. For example, a web server could attach Type-of-Service information to threads and have a ``ToS aware'' scheduling algorithm tailored to this specific web server. This path of flexible schedulers will be explored for \CFA.
    1717
    1818\subsection{Non-Blocking IO} \label{futur:nbio}
    19 While most of the parallelism tools are aimed at data parallelism and control-flow parallelism, many modern workloads are not bound on computation but on IO operations, a common case being web servers and XaaS (anything as a service). These type of workloads often require significant engineering around amortizing costs of blocking IO operations. At its core, Non-Blocking IO is an operating system level feature that allows queuing IO operations (e.g., network operations) and registering for notifications instead of waiting for requests to complete. In this context, the role of the language makes Non-Blocking IO easily available and with low overhead. The current trend is to use asynchronous programming using tools like callbacks and/or futures and promises, which can be seen in frameworks like Node.js~\cite{NodeJs} for JavaScript, Spring MVC~\cite{SpringMVC} for Java and Django~\cite{Django} for Python. However, while these are valid solutions, they lead to code that is harder to read and maintain because it is much less linear.
     19While most of the parallelism tools are aimed at data parallelism and control-flow parallelism, many modern workloads are not bound on computation but on IO operations, a common case being web servers and XaaS (anything as a service). These types of workloads often require significant engineering around amortizing costs of blocking IO operations. At its core, Non-Blocking IO is an operating system level feature that allows queuing IO operations (e.g., network operations) and registering for notifications instead of waiting for requests to complete. In this context, the role of the language makes Non-Blocking IO easily available and with low overhead. The current trend is to use asynchronous programming using tools like callbacks and/or futures and promises, which can be seen in frameworks like Node.js~\cite{NodeJs} for JavaScript, Spring MVC~\cite{SpringMVC} for Java and Django~\cite{Django} for Python. However, while these are valid solutions, they lead to code that is harder to read and maintain because it is much less linear.
    2020
    2121\subsection{Other Concurrency Tools} \label{futur:tools}
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