Breaking the WiredTiger Logjam: The Wait-Free Solution (2/2)
Blog post from MongoDB
In an effort to address performance challenges in the WiredTiger write-ahead log, which was obstructing MongoDB's aim of making it the default storage engine in version 3.2, Senior Technical Service Engineer Bruce Lucas uncovered a critical logjam issue caused by busy-waiting when the number of threads exceeded a certain threshold. By rethinking the atomicity constraints and using a novel approach that allowed the use of two separate counters within a single int64 register, Lucas and his colleague were able to eliminate the need for threads to wait by enabling them to write into slots immediately after joining. This optimization resulted in nearly tripling the journal algorithm's performance, resolving the negative scaling at high thread counts, and making WiredTiger a more efficient storage engine. Their work underscored the importance of having a fresh perspective when tackling entrenched technical issues and highlighted the satisfying impact of significant, user-visible improvements in code optimization.
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