diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.htmlx')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.htmlx | 28 |
1 files changed, 20 insertions, 8 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.htmlx b/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.htmlx index 3355f1f9384c..d6a84f3e0451 100644 --- a/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.htmlx +++ b/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.htmlx @@ -1257,12 +1257,27 @@ These classes is covered in the following sections. <h3><a name="Specialization">Specialization</a></h3> <p> -RCU is and always has been intended primarily for read-mostly situations, as -illustrated by the following figure. -This means that RCU's read-side primitives are optimized, often at the +RCU is and always has been intended primarily for read-mostly situations, +which means that RCU's read-side primitives are optimized, often at the expense of its update-side primitives. +Experience thus far is captured by the following list of situations: -<p><img src="RCUApplicability.svg" alt="RCUApplicability.svg" width="70%"></p> +<ol> +<li> Read-mostly data, where stale and inconsistent data is not + a problem: RCU works great! +<li> Read-mostly data, where data must be consistent: + RCU works well. +<li> Read-write data, where data must be consistent: + RCU <i>might</i> work OK. + Or not. +<li> Write-mostly data, where data must be consistent: + RCU is very unlikely to be the right tool for the job, + with the following exceptions, where RCU can provide: + <ol type=a> + <li> Existence guarantees for update-friendly mechanisms. + <li> Wait-free read-side primitives for real-time use. + </ol> +</ol> <p> This focus on read-mostly situations means that RCU must interoperate @@ -1330,10 +1345,7 @@ some period of time, so the exact wait period is a judgment call. One of our pair of veternarians might wait 30 seconds before pronouncing the cat dead, while the other might insist on waiting a full minute. The two veternarians would then disagree on the state of the cat during -the final 30 seconds of the minute following the last heartbeat, as -fancifully illustrated below: - -<p><img src="2013-08-is-it-dead.png" alt="2013-08-is-it-dead.png" width="431"></p> +the final 30 seconds of the minute following the last heartbeat. <p> Interestingly enough, this same situation applies to hardware. |