topic Re: CPU pinning for SAS processes? in Administration and Deployment

CPU pinning for SAS processes?

kevind — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 18:19:19 GMT

Here's the Scenario: 2 servers (Redhat) with 8 cores each but 4 cores are turned off on each server to be in compliance with SAS licensing. So the issue is, that the 4 cores on each server that are running SAS applications are also competing with 700 other processes, for monitoring, clustered file system, backups, scheduling, file transfers, etc.

I found the post below about using the "taskset" command to reserve cores during boot up and then start specific applications on those cores. Has anyone used this function or one like it to reserve cores for SAS (Grid) and then use the remaining cores for the rest of the processes?

How to run program or process on specific CPU cores on Linux
Last updated on October 29, 2013 Authored by Dan Nanni 11 Comments

As multi-core CPUs become increasingly popular on server-grade hardware as well as end-user desktop PCs or laptops, there have been growing efforts in the community (e.g., in terms of programming models, compiler or operating system support) towards developing applications optimized for multi-core architecture.

One operating system (OS) support often exploited to run performance-critical applications on multi-core processors is so-called "processor
affinity" or "CPU pinning". This is an OS-specific feature that "binds" a running process or program to particular CPU core(s).

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Re: CPU pinning for SAS processes?

jakarman — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 19:35:36 GMT

Use cgroups that is intended for your mentioned purpose Chapter 1. Introduction to Control Groups (Cgroups) .

Re: CPU pinning for SAS processes?

kevind — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 20:39:23 GMT

I have RHEL 6.5 but the Cgroups functionality is not installed. Have you set up any clients with this?

Re: CPU pinning for SAS processes?

jakarman — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 21:40:01 GMT

It is documented in the SAS VA installation guide. That is how I got to know this.
Looks toe become at the same level as z/OS WLM. I would have like to do this cgroups at Linux. Pitty not having the chance to do that (yet).

Re: CPU pinning for SAS processes?

kevind — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:00:23 GMT

Jaap, Thank you for pointing me in the right direction! Found a SAS paper too support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings14/SAS289-2014.pdf. This is exciting stuff.