Using Logging-on-Write to Improve Non-Volatile Memory Checkpoints via Processing-in-Memory

NVM architectures must keep consistent data in case of failures, a property called crash consistency. A common way to do so is by checkpoint mechanisms. However, most of the strategies developed have performance and usability problems. Among main limitations are non-software-transparent strategies, the addition of logging operations in the critical execution path, and increased writes to NVM, resulting in significant bandwidth usage between processor and memory. DONUTS solves these problems by a hardware mechanism that provides crash consistency via checkpoints integrated into cache replacement policy using Processing-in-Memory to perform logging operations. Its approach reduces writes from the processor's memory controller and the NVM external bandwidth usage but generates unnecessary log entries. This paper expands DONUTS to a multi-core scenario evaluating two processing-in-memory strategies. The first logs during read operations, and the second uses a new lazy strategy to log data exclusively on write operations when these operations are effectively needed. Finally, we compare runtime performance, log rate, energy consumption, and memory space. Results show that our new logging-on-write strategy maintained the DONUTS runtime performance but reduced energy consumption in multi-core applications by around 33% due to an average reduction of 42% in log operations. Also, the new strategy generates a checkpoint size 5x smaller than the previous system, maximizing the use of NVM. Compared to other systems, DONUTS presented an average overhead of 1% to 3% against up to 7% of previous software-transparent better-performing projects.