[ale] Ouch

Lightner, Jeffrey JLightner at dsservices.com
Mon Jan 8 15:40:29 EST 2018


I just went through documentation at our Linux distro's site,  our main server manufacturer's site and Intel's site.  Am I reading all this correctly?

1) Are the OS patches only effective if we've also applied a CPU microcode/firmware update?

2) Intel's site seems to suggest it is relying on server manufacturers to push out microcode/firmware updates? 

3) There seems to be discussion of a microcode_ctl at RedHat but some comments seem to suggest it isn't for everything (and/or may not exist any longer).

4) Assuming the foregoing and if the manufacturer isn't releasing a bios update for older servers does it mean there is no action I can or should take (other than replacing the hardware or insuring it is isolated)?   i.e. Is there no point in applying the OS update if there is not a microcode/firmware update of the CPU as well?


-----Original Message-----
From: Ale [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Alex Carver via Ale
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2018 4:59 PM
To: Jim Kinney via Ale
Subject: Re: [ale] Ouch

This also appears to extend to ARM64 as well:
https://lwn.net/Articles/740393/

That sucks more given how many ARM-based processors are around (including phones) and can't exactly handle a 20-30% performance hit.



On 2018-01-03 07:04, Jim Kinney via Ale wrote:
> Good data. Thanks. 
> 
> On Wed, 2018-01-03 at 07:47 -0500, Solomon Peachy via Ale wrote:
>> On Tue, Jan 02, 2018 at 10:24:07PM -0500, Raj Wurttemberg via Ale
>> wrote:
>>> Ohh.. yeah... Ouch!!  A 30% performance hit?!?!  
>>
>> It's actually not _that_ bad -- it's a significant performance hit on 
>> making system calls -- the only measurements I've seen have shown a 
>> 38% increase in the overhead to read() --actual processing is 
>> unaffected.
>>
>> On the other hand, I/O intensive workloads are the most heavily 
>> impacted.  The PostgreSQL folks have done some preliminary benchmarks 
>> and it's not pretty:
>>
>>   https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20180102222354.qikjmf7dvnjgbk
>> xe at alap3.anarazel.de
>>
>>  - Solomon
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo


More information about the Ale mailing list