[Python-Dev] Profile Guided Optimization active by-default

Patrascu, Alecsandru alecsandru.patrascu at intel.com
Sat Aug 22 18:40:52 CEST 2015


Hello and thank you for your feedback.

We have measured PGO gain using other workloads also. Our initial choice for this optimization was pybench, but the speedup obtained was lower than using regrtest and it didn't cover a lot of Python scenarios. Instead, regrtest has an uniform distribution for the tests and the resulting binary is overall much faster than the default, or trained using other workloads, and thus covering a larger pool of Python loads. This optimization was also tested on a production environments running OpenStack Swift and got up to 9% improvements.

The reason we proposed this target to be always on is that the obtained optimized binary is better out of the box for the general cases.

Alecsandru 

From: gvanrossum at gmail.com [mailto:gvanrossum at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Guido van Rossum
Sent: Saturday, August 22, 2015 7:15 PM
To: Patrascu, Alecsandru
Cc: python-dev at python.org
Subject: Re: [Python-Dev] Profile Guided Optimization active by-default

How about we first add a new Makefile target that enables PGO, without turning it on by default? Then later we can enable it by default.
Also, I have my doubts about regrtest. How sure are we that it represents a typical Python load? Tests are often using a different mix of operations than production code.

On Sat, Aug 22, 2015 at 7:46 AM, Patrascu, Alecsandru <alecsandru.patrascu at intel.com> wrote:
Hi All,

This is Alecsandru from Server Scripting Languages Optimization team at Intel Corporation.

I would like to submit a request to turn-on Profile Guided Optimization or PGO as the default build option for Python (both 2.7 and 3.6), given its performance benefits on a wide variety of workloads and hardware.  For instance, as shown from attached sample performance results from the Grand Unified Python Benchmark, >20% speed up was observed.  In addition, we are seeing 2-9% performance boost from OpenStack/Swift where more than 60% of the codes are in Python 2.7. Our analysis indicates the performance gain was mainly due to reduction of icache misses and CPU front-end stalls.

Attached is the Makefile patches that modify the all build target and adds a new one called "disable-profile-opt". We built and tested this patch for Python 2.7 and 3.6 on our Linux machines (CentOS 7/Ubuntu Server 14.04, Intel Xeon Haswell/Broadwell with 18/8 cores).  We use "regrtest" suite for training as it provides the best performance improvement.  Some of the test programs in the suite may fail which leads to build fail.  One solution is to disable the specific failed test using the "-x " flag (as shown in the patch)

Steps to apply the patch:
1.  hg clone https://hg.python.org/cpython cpython
2.  cd cpython
3.  hg update 2.7 (needed for 2.7 only)
4.  Copy *.patch to the current directory
5.  patch < python2.7-pgo.patch (or patch < python3.6-pgo.patch)
6.  ./configure
7.  make

To disable PGO
7b. make disable-profile-opt

In the following, please find our sample performance results from latest XEON machine, XEON Broadwell EP.
Hardware (HW):      Intel XEON (Broadwell) 8 Cores

BIOS settings:      Intel Turbo Boost Technology: false
                    Hyper-Threading: false

Operating System:   Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS trusty

OS configuration:   CPU freq set at fixed: 2.6GHz by
                        echo 2600000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq
                        echo 2600000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
                    Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) disabled (to reduce run to run variation) by
                        echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/randomize_va_space

GCC version:        gcc version 4.8.4 (Ubuntu 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04)

Benchmark:          Grand Unified Python Benchmark (GUPB)
                    GUPB Source: https://hg.python.org/benchmarks/

Python2.7 results:
    Python source: hg clone https://hg.python.org/cpython cpython
    Python Source: hg update 2.7
    hg id: 0511b1165bb6 (2.7)
    hg id -r 'ancestors(.) and tag()': 15c95b7d81dc (2.7) v2.7.10
    hg --debug id -i: 0511b1165bb6cf40ada0768a7efc7ba89316f6a5

        Benchmarks          Speedup(%)
        simple_logging      20
        raytrace            20
        silent_logging      19
        richards            19
        chaos               16
        formatted_logging   16
        json_dump           15
        hexiom2             13
        pidigits            12
        slowunpickle        12
        django_v2           12
        unpack_sequence     11
        float               11
        mako                11
        slowpickle          11
        fastpickle          11
        django              11
        go                  10
        json_dump_v2        10
        pathlib             10
        regex_compile       10
        pybench             9.9
        etree_process       9
        regex_v8            8
        bzr_startup         8
        2to3                8
        slowspitfire        8
        telco               8
        pickle_list         8
        fannkuch            8
        etree_iterparse     8
        nqueens             8
        mako_v2             8
        etree_generate      8
        call_method_slots   7
        html5lib_warmup     7
        html5lib            7
        nbody               7
        spectral_norm       7
        spambayes           7
        fastunpickle        6
        meteor_contest      6
        chameleon           6
        rietveld            6
        tornado_http        5
        unpickle_list       5
        pickle_dict         4
        regex_effbot        3
        normal_startup      3
        startup_nosite      3
        etree_parse         2
        call_method_unknown 2
        call_simple         1
        json_load           1
        call_method         1

Python3.6 results
    Python source: hg clone https://hg.python.org/cpython cpython
    hg id: 96d016f78726 tip
    hg id -r 'ancestors(.) and tag()': 1a58b1227501 (3.5) v3.5.0rc1
    hg --debug id -i: 96d016f78726afbf66d396f084b291ea43792af1


        Benchmark           Speedup(%)
        fastunpickle        22.94
        fastpickle          21.67
        json_load           17.64
        simple_logging      17.49
        meteor_contest      16.67
        formatted_logging   15.33
        etree_process       14.61
        raytrace            13.57
        etree_generate      13.56
        chaos               12.09
        hexiom2             12
        nbody               11.88
        json_dump_v2        11.24
        richards            11.02
        nqueens             10.96
        fannkuch            10.79
        go                  10.77
        float               10.26
        regex_compile       9.8
        silent_logging      9.63
        pidigits            9.58
        etree_iterparse     9.48
        2to3                8.44
        regex_v8            8.09
        regex_effbot        7.88
        call_simple         7.63
        tornado_http        7.38
        etree_parse         4.92
        spectral_norm       4.72
        normal_startup      4.39
        telco               3.88
        startup_nosite      3.7
        call_method         3.63
        unpack_sequence     3.6
        call_method_slots   2.91
        call_method_unknown 2.59
        iterative_count     0.45
        threaded_count      -2.79


Thank you,
Alecsandru

_______________________________________________
Python-Dev mailing list
Python-Dev at python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev
Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/guido%40python.org



-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)


More information about the Python-Dev mailing list