Persistent memory (PMem) is a low-latency storage technology connected to the processor memory bus. The Direct Access (DAX) interface promises fast access to PMem, mapping it directly to processes' virtual address spaces. However, virtual memory operations (e.g., paging) limit its performance and scalability. Through an analysis of Linux/x86 memory mapping, we find that current systems fall short of what hardware can provide due to numerous software inefficiencies stemming from OS assumptions that memory mapping is for DRAM. In this paper we propose DaxVM, a design that extends the OS virtual memory and file system layers leveraging persistent memory attributes to provide a fast and scalable DAX-mmap interface. DaxVM eliminates paging costs through pre-populated file page tables, supports faster and scalable virtual address space management for ephemeral mappings, performs unmappings asynchronously, bypasses kernel-space dirty-page tracking support, and adopts asynchronous block pre-zeroing. We implement DaxVM in Linux and the ext4 file system targeting x86-64 architecture. DaxVM mmap achieves 4.9× higher throughput than default mmap for the Apache webserver and up to 1.5× better performance than read system calls. It provides similar benefits for text search. It also provides fast boot times and up to 2.95× better throughput than default mmap for PMem-optimizedmore »
This content will become publicly available on October 1, 2023
DaxVM: Stressing the Limits of Memory as a File Interface
Persistent memory (PMem) is a low-latency storage technology connected to the processor memory bus. The Direct Access (DAX) interface promises fast access to PMem, mapping it directly to processes' virtual address spaces. However, virtual memory operations (e.g., paging) limit its performance and scalability. Through an analysis of Linux/x86 memory mapping, we find that current systems fall short of what hardware can provide due to numerous software inefficiencies stemming from OS assumptions that memory mapping is for DRAM.
In this paper we propose DaxVM, a design that extends the OS virtual memory and file system layers leveraging persistent memory attributes to provide a fast and scalable DAX-mmap interface. DaxVM eliminates paging costs through pre-populated file page tables, supports faster and scalable virtual address space management for ephemeral mappings, performs unmappings asynchronously, bypasses kernel-space dirty-page tracking support, and adopts asynchronous block pre-zeroing. We implement DaxVM in Linux and the ext4 file system targeting x86-64 architecture. DaxVM mmap achieves 4.9× higher throughput than default mmap for the Apache webserver and up to 1.5× better performance than read system calls. It provides similar benefits for text search. It also provides fast boot times and up to 2.95× better throughput than default mmap for PMem-optimized key-value more »
- Award ID(s):
- 1815656
- Publication Date:
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10380348
- Journal Name:
- 2022 55th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO)
- Page Range or eLocation-ID:
- 369 to 387
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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