perf events: Add generic front-end and back-end stalled cycle event definitions

Add two generic hardware events: front-end and back-end stalled cycles.

These events measure conditions when the CPU is executing code but its
capabilities are not fully utilized. Understanding such situations and
analyzing them is an important sub-task of code optimization workflows.

Both events limit performance: most front end stalls tend to be caused
by branch misprediction or instruction fetch cachemisses, backend
stalls can be caused by various resource shortages or inefficient
instruction scheduling.

Front-end stalls are the more important ones: code cannot run fast
if the instruction stream is not being kept up.

An over-utilized back-end can cause front-end stalls and thus
has to be kept an eye on as well.

The exact composition is very program logic and instruction mix
dependent.

We use the terms 'stall', 'front-end' and 'back-end' loosely and
try to use the best available events from specific CPUs that
approximate these concepts.

Cc: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Cc: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>
Cc: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/n/tip-7y40wib8n000io7hjpn1dsrm@git.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>

diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_event_intel.c b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_event_intel.c
index 1ea94224f62e90345fa54254fea1be7a8e64a1c6..393085b87a2ced50f715cf16dfe3eeb1c89dc5ec 100644 (file)
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_event_intel.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_event_intel.c
@@ -1414,7 +1414,7 @@ static __init int intel_pmu_init(void)
                x86_pmu.extra_regs = intel_nehalem_extra_regs;
 
                /* Install the stalled-cycles event: UOPS_EXECUTED.CORE_ACTIVE_CYCLES,c=1,i=1 */
-               intel_perfmon_event_map[PERF_COUNT_HW_STALLED_CYCLES] = 0x1803fb1;
+               intel_perfmon_event_map[PERF_COUNT_HW_STALLED_CYCLES_BACKEND] = 0x1803fb1;
 
                if (ebx & 0x40) {
                        /*

diff --git a/include/linux/perf_event.h b/include/linux/perf_event.h
index ac636dd20a0c3224763a1c7e8a640bdd7aaa74f0..4e2d7ae714995659ad5877c4df851c0942df44d5 100644 (file)
--- a/include/linux/perf_event.h
+++ b/include/linux/perf_event.h
@@ -52,7 +52,8 @@ enum perf_hw_id {
        PERF_COUNT_HW_BRANCH_INSTRUCTIONS       = 4,
        PERF_COUNT_HW_BRANCH_MISSES             = 5,
        PERF_COUNT_HW_BUS_CYCLES                = 6,
-       PERF_COUNT_HW_STALLED_CYCLES            = 7,
+       PERF_COUNT_HW_STALLED_CYCLES_FRONTEND   = 7,
+       PERF_COUNT_HW_STALLED_CYCLES_BACKEND    = 8,
 
        PERF_COUNT_HW_MAX,                      /* non-ABI */
 };