unnamed_ba_thesis/tex/misc/background_draft.tex

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% \chapter{Backgrounds}
Recent studies has shown a reinvigorated interest in disaggregated/distributed
shared memory systems last seen in the 1990s. While large-scale cluster systems
remain predominantly the solution for massively parallel computation, it is known
to 
The interplay between (page) replacement policy and runtime performance of
distributed shared memory systems has not been properly explored.

\section{Overview of Distributed Shared Memory}

A striking feature in the study of distributed shared memory (DSM) systems is the
non-uniformity of the terminologies used to describe overlapping study interests.
The majority of contributions to DSM study come from the 1990s, for example
\textbf{[Treadmark, Millipede, Munin, Shiva, etc.]}. These DSM systems attempt to
leverage kernel system calls to allow for user-level DSM over ethernet NICs. While
these systems provide a strong theoretical basis for today's majority-software
DSM systems and applications that expose a \emph{(partitioned) global address space},
they were nevertheless constrained by the limitations in NIC transfer rate and
bandwidth, and the concept of DSM failed to take off (relative to cluster computing).

Improvement in NIC bandwidth and transfer rate allows for applications that expose
global address space, as well as RDMA technologies that leverage single-writer
protocols over hierarchical memory nodes. \textbf{[GAS and PGAS (Partitioned GAS)
technologies for example Openshmem, OpenMPI, Cray Chapel, etc. that leverage
specially-linked memory sections and \texttt{/dev/shm} to abstract away RDMA access]}.


Contemporary works on DSM systems focus more on leveraging hardware advancements
to provide fast and/or seamless software support. Adrias \cite{Masouros_etal.Adrias.2023},
for example, implements a complex system for memory disaggregation over multiple
compute nodes connected via the \textit{ThymesisFlow}-based RDMA fabric, where
they observed significant performance improvements over existing data-intensive
processing frameworks, for example APACHE Spark, Memcached, and Redis, over
no-disaggregation (i.e., using node-local memory only, similar to cluster computing)
systems.

\subsection{Move Data to Process, or Move Process to Data?}
(TBD -- The former is costly for data-intensive computation, but the latter may
be impossible for certain tasks, and greatly hardens the replacement problem.)

\section{Replacement Policy}

In general, three variants of replacement strategies have been proposed for either
generic cache block replacement problems, or specific use-cases where contextual
factors can facilitate more efficient cache resource allocation:
\begin{itemize}
    \item General-Purpose Replacement Algorithms, for example LRU.
    \item Cost-Model Analysis
    \item Probabilistic and Learned Algorithms
\end{itemize}

\subsection{General-Purpose Replacement Algorithms}
Practically speaking, in the general case of the cache replacement problem,
we desire to predict the re-reference interval of a cache block
\cite{Jaleel_etal.RRIP.2010}. This follows from the Belady's algorithm -- the
optimal case for the \emph{ideal} replacement problem occurs when, at eviction
time, the entry with the highest re-reference interval is replaced. Under this
framework, therefore, the commonly-used LRU algorithm could be seen as a heuristic
where the re-reference interval for each entry is predicted to be immediate.
Fortunately, memory access traces of real computer systems agree with this
tendency due to spatial locality \textbf{[source]}. (Real systems are complex,
however, and there are other behaviors...) On the other hand, the hypothetical
LFU algorithm is a heuristic that captures frequency. \textbf{[\dots]} While the
textbook LFU algorithm suffers from needing to maintain a priority-queue for
frequency analysis, it was nevertheless useful for keeping recurrent (though
non-recent) blocks from being evicted from the cache \textbf{[source]}.

Derivatives from the LRU algorithm attempts to balance between frequency and
recency. \textbf{[Talk about LRU-K, LRU-2Q, LRU-MQ, LIRS, ARC here \dots]}

Advancements in parallel/concurrent systems had led to a rediscovery of the benefits
of using FIFO-derived replacement policies over their LRU/LFU counterparts, as
book-keeping operations on the uniform LRU/LFU state proves to be (1) difficult
for synchronization and, relatedly, (2) cache-unfriendly \cite{Yang_etal.FIFO-LPQD.2023}.
\textbf{[Talk about FIFO, FIFO-CLOCK, FIFO-CAR, FIFO-QuickDemotion, and Dueling
CLOCK here \dots]}

Finally, real-life experiences have shown the need to reduce CPU time in practical
applications, owing from one simple observation -- during the fetch-execution
cycle, all processors perform blocking I/O on the memory. A cache-unfriendly
design, despite its hypothetical optimality, could nevertheless degrade the performance
of a system during low-memory situations. In fact, this proves to be the driving
motivation behind Linux's transition away from the old LRU-2Q page replacement
algorithm into the more coarse-grained Multi-generation LRU algorithm, which has
been mainlined since v6.1.

\subsection{Cost-Model Analysis}
The ideal case for the replacement problem fails to account for invalidation of
cache entries. It also assumes for a uniform, dual-hierarchical cache-store model
that is insufficient to capture the heterogeneity of today's massively-parallel,
distributed systems. High-speed network interfaces are capable of exposing RDMA
interfaces between computer nodes, which amount to almost twice as fast RDMA transfer
when compared to swapping over the kernel I/O stack, while software that bypass
the kernel I/O stack is capable of stretching the bandwidth advantage even more
(source). This creates an interesting network topology between RDMA-enabled nodes,
where, in addition to swapping at low-memory situations, the node may opt to ``swap''
or simply drop the physical page in order to lessen the cost of page misses.

\textbf{[Talk about GreedyDual, GDSF, BCL, Amortization]}

Traditionally, replacement policies based on cost-model analysis were utilized in
content-delivery networks, which had different consistency models compared to
finer-grained systems. HTTP servers need not pertain to strong consistency models,
as out-of-date information is considered permissible, and single-writer scenarios
are common. Consequently, most replacement policies for static content servers,
while making strong distinction towards network topology, fails to concern for the
cases where an entry might become invalidated, let along multi-writer protocols.
One early paper \cite{LaRowe_Ellis.Repl_NUMA.1991} examines the efficacy of using
page fault frequency as an indicator of preference towards working set inclusion
(which I personally think is highly flawed -- to be explained). Another paper
\cite{Aguilar_Leiss.Coherence-Replacement.2006} explores the possibility of taking
page fault into consideration for eviction, but fails to go beyond the obvious
implication that pages that have been faulted \emph{must} be evicted.

The concept of cost models for RDMA and NUMA systems are relatively underdeveloped,
too. (Expand)

\subsection{Probabilistic and Learned Algorithms for Cache Replacement}
Finally, machine learning techniques and low-cost probabilistic approaches have
been applied on the ideal cache replacement problem with some level of success.
\textbf{[Talk about LeCaR, CACHEUS here]}.

\section{Cache Coherence and Consistency in DSM Systems}

(I need to read more into this. Most of the contribution comes from CPU caches,
less so for DSM systems.) \textbf{[Talk about JIAJIA and Treadmark's coherence
protocol.]}

Consistency and communication protocols naturally affect the cost for each faulted
memory access \dots

\textbf{[Talk about directory, transactional, scope, and library cache coherence,
which allow for multi-casted communications at page fault but all with different
levels of book-keeping.]}

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