% Credit2 Scheduler
% Revision 2

\clearpage

# Basics
---------------- ----------------------------------------------------
         Status: **Supported**

      Component: Hypervisor
---------------- ----------------------------------------------------

# Overview

Credit2 is the default virtual CPU (vCPU) scheduler available in the
Xen hypervisor.

Credit2 was designed as a general purpose scheduler, with particular
focus on improving handling of mixed workloads, scalability and
support for low latency applications inside VMs.

# User details

Xen supports multiple schedulers. As said, Credit2 is the default, so
it is used automatically, unless the `sched=$SCHED` (with `$SCHED`
different than `credit2`) parameter is passed to Xen via the
bootloader.

Other parameters are available for tuning the behavior of Credit2
(see `docs/misc/xen-command-line.pandoc` for a complete list and
for their meaning).

Once the system is live, for creating a cpupool with Credit2 as
its scheduler, either compile a cpupool configuration file, as
described in `docs/man/xlcpupool.cfg.pod.5` (and as exemplified
in `tools/examples/cpupool`), or use just `xl` directly:

    xl cpupool-create name=\"pool1\" sched=\"credit2\" cpus=[1,2]

Two kind of interactions with the scheduler are possible:

* checking or changing the global parameters, via, e.g.:
    * `xl sched-credit2 -s`
    * `xl sched-credit2 -s -p pool1`
    * `xl sched-credit2 -s -r 100`
* checking or changing a VM scheduling parameters, via, e.g.:
    * `xl sched-credit2 -d vm1`
    * `xl sched-credit2 -d vm1 -w 1024`

# Technical details

Implementation entirely lives in the hypervisor. Xen has a pluggable,
hook based, architecture for schedulers. Thanks to this, Credit2 code
is all contained in `xen/common/sched_credit2.c`.

Global scheduling parameters, such as context switching rate
limiting, is only available from Xen 4.8 onward. In libxl, the
LIBXL_HAVE_SCHED_CREDIT2_PARAMS symbol is introduced to
indicate their availability.

# Testing

Any change done in Credit2 wants to be tested by doing at least the
following:

* boot the system with `sched=credit2`,
* create a few virtual machine and verify that they boot and can
  run some basic workload (e.g., login into them and run simple commands),
* shutdown/reboot the virtual machines,
* shutdown/reboot the system.

Ideally, all the above steps should **also** be performed in a configuration
where Credit2 is used as the scheduler of a cpupool, and by also doing the
following:

* move a virtual machine inside and outside a Credit2 cpupool.

# Areas for improvement

* vCPUs' reservations (similar to caps, but providing a vCPU with guarantees
  about some pCPU time it will always be able to execute for);
* benchmarking for assessing the best combination of values for the various
  parameters (`sched_credit2_migrate_resist`, `credit2_balance_over`,
  `credit2_balance_under`)

# Known issues

* I/O oriented benchmarks (like network and disk throughput) have given
  contradictory and non-conclusive results so far. Need to run more of
  those.

# References

* "Scheduler development update", XenSummit Asia 2009 [whitepaper](http://www-archive.xenproject.org/files/xensummit_intel09/George_Dunlap.pdf)
* "Scheduling in Xen" [XPDS15 Presentation](http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/Faggioli_XenSummit.pdf)
* "Scope and Performance of Credit-2 Scheduler" [XPDS16 Presentation](http://www.slideshare.net/xen_com_mgr/xpds16-scope-and-performance-of-credit2-scheduler-anshul-makkar-ctirix-systems-uk-ltd)
* "The Credit2 Scheduler" [on the Xen-Project wiki](https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Credit2_Scheduler_Development)
* "Xen Project Schedulers" [on the Xen-Project wiki](https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Xen_Project_Schedulers)

# History

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date       Revision Version  Notes
---------- -------- -------- -------------------------------------------
2016-10-14 1        Xen 4.8  Document written
2017-11-6  2        Xen 4.10 Soft-affinity and caps implemented
2019-02-7  3        Xen 4.12 Made the default scheduler
---------- -------- -------- -------------------------------------------
