MAJOR: leastconn: postpone the server's repositioning under contention
When leastconn is used under many threads, there can be a lot of
contention on leastconn, because the same node has to be moved around
all the time (when picking it and when releasing it). In GH issue #2861
it was noticed that 46 threads out of 64 were waiting on the same lock
in fwlc_srv_reposition().
In such a case, the accuracy of the server's key becomes quite irrelevant
because nobody cares if the same server is picked twice in a row and the
next one twice again.
While other approaches in the past considered using a floating key to
avoid moving the server each time (which was not compatible with the
round-robin rule for equal keys), here a more drastic solution is needed.
What we're doing instead is that we turn this lock into a trylock. If we
can grab it, we do the job. If we can't, then we just wake up a server's
tasklet dedicated to this. That tasklet will then try again slightly
later, knowing that during this short time frame, the server's position
in the queue is slightly inaccurate. Note that any thread touching the
same server will also reposition it and save that work for next time.
Also if multiple threads wake the tasklet up, then that's fine, their
calls will be merged and a single lock will be taken in the end.
Testing this on a 24-core EPYC 74F3 showed a significant performance
boost from 382krps to 610krps. The performance profile reported by
perf top dropped from 43% to 2.5%:
The cost of fwlc_get_next_server() naturally increases as the server
count increases, but now has no visible effect on updates. The load
distribution remains unchanged compared to the previous approach,
the weight still being respected.
For further improvements to the fwlc algo, please consult github
issue #881 which centralizes everything related to this algorithm.