Kernel, MySql, common apps and multicores

Frakk · 02-28-2011, 03:35 PM

Hi,

I've ran some searches but mostly the results deal with the issue from a programming POV.

I was wondering how much of a benefit is there running rather common apps in multiple cores.

I'm mostly talking about common office apps but also about a general benefit in the system responsiveness and particularly curious about MySql performance.

If the apps are not written to use more than a core will the kernel automagically balance the load by using different cores for different apps??

Thanks in advance.

chrism01 · 02-28-2011, 11:49 PM

In short, yes

Basically the kernel balances all the requests over all the cores it can find. A lot of (most ?) programs are still single thread/process, so a given prog can't be split over multiple cores, but different apps can be run 'simultaneously' on different cores.
If a prog does have multi-processing capability(ie threads or processes or both), you don't need to think about it, the kernel will handle that for you automatically.

HTH

Frakk · 03-01-2011, 06:10 AM

Hi,
thank you for replying, I bet this is not the first time this was asked

Just to understand a little better:

when you see a multicore with one core being maxed out and the other one idle it means that some single threaded program is running on that core but the system should still be able to handle other programs with some elegance by assigning them to the idle core ¿is that correct?

TIA