HASIIL: Hardware-Assisted Scheduling to Improve IPC Latency in Linux
Tim Twardzik, Lars Nolte, Camille Jalier, Jiyuan Shi, Thomas J. Wild, Andreas Herkersdorf · 2024
Inter-processes communication (IPC) is essential for multi-threaded applications to achieve efficient execution. Synchronization through IPC can become a bottleneck for these applications. The effectiveness of IPC is determined by both its latency and CPU utilization needed for the associated functions. Our research has revealed that for blocking IPC mechanisms, the thread scheduling functions within the Linux operating system significantly contribute to the notification latency. To address this issue, we propose a novel concept called HASIIL, which combines offloading IPC functionality with hardware-assisted scheduling to enhance IPC latency. Through this approach, we can improve the latency of blocking IPC mechanisms by up to 36% in Linux, while also improving CPU utilization by 40%.