Self-tuning of disk input–output in operating systems

Abstract

One of the most difficult and hard to learn tasks in computer system management is tuning the kernel parameters in order to get the maximum performance. Traditionally, this tuning has been set using either fixed configurations or the subjective administrator's criteria. The main bottleneck among the subsystems managed by the operating systems is disk input/output (I/O). An evolutionary module has been developed to perform the tuning of this subsystem automatically, using an adaptive and dynamic approach. Any computer change, both at the hardware level, and due to the nature of the workload itself, will make our module adapt automatically and in a transparent way. Thus, system administrators are released from this kind of task and able to achieve some optimal performances adapted to the framework of each of their systems. The experiment made shows a productivity increase in 88.2% of cases and an average improvement of 29.63% with regard to the default configuration of the Linux operating system. A decrease of the average latency was achieved in 77.5% of cases and the mean decrease in the request processing time of I/O was 12.79%.