CXL-Interference: Analysis and Characterization in Modern Computer Systems

TL;DR

This paper investigates interference issues in CXL technology, providing the first hardware-based characterization and analysis, along with mitigation strategies to improve performance in modern systems.

Contribution

It introduces CXL-Interplay, a systematic analysis of CXL interference on real hardware, including novel characterization, reverse-reasoning analysis, and mitigation solutions.

Findings

First hardware-based characterization of CXL interference.

Identification of key interference sources affecting performance.

Proposed mitigation strategies that improve CXL system performance.

Abstract

Compute Express Link (CXL) is a promising technology that addresses memory and storage challenges. Despite its advantages, CXL faces performance threats from external interference when co-existing with current memory and storage systems. This interference is under-explored in existing research. To address this, we develop CXL-Interplay, systematically characterizing and analyzing interference from memory and storage systems. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to characterize CXL interference on real CXL hardware. We also provide reverse-reasoning analysis with performance counters and kernel functions. In the end, we propose and evaluate mitigating solutions.