Thread (30 messages) 30 messages, 3 authors, 2018-02-22

Re: [RFC v2] doc compression API for DPDK

From: Trahe, Fiona <hidden>
Date: 2018-02-16 13:04:37

-----Original Message-----
From: Verma, Shally [mailto:Shally.Verma@cavium.com]
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2018 7:17 AM
To: Ahmed Mansour <redacted>; Trahe, Fiona <redacted>;
dev@dpdk.org
Cc: Athreya, Narayana Prasad <redacted>; Gupta, Ashish
[off-list ref]; Sahu, Sunila [off-list ref]; De Lara Guarch, Pablo
[off-list ref]; Challa, Mahipal [off-list ref]; Jain, Deepak K
[off-list ref]; Hemant Agrawal [off-list ref]; Roy Pledge
[off-list ref]; Youri Querry [off-list ref]
Subject: RE: [RFC v2] doc compression API for DPDK

Hi Fiona, Ahmed
quoted
-----Original Message-----
From: Ahmed Mansour [mailto:ahmed.mansour@nxp.com]
Sent: 16 February 2018 02:40
To: Trahe, Fiona <redacted>; Verma, Shally <redacted>; dev@dpdk.org
Cc: Athreya, Narayana Prasad <redacted>; Gupta, Ashish
[off-list ref]; Sahu, Sunila
quoted
[off-list ref]; De Lara Guarch, Pablo [off-list ref]; Challa,
Mahipal
quoted
[off-list ref]; Jain, Deepak K [off-list ref]; Hemant Agrawal
[off-list ref]; Roy
quoted
Pledge [off-list ref]; Youri Querry [off-list ref]
Subject: Re: [RFC v2] doc compression API for DPDK

On 2/15/2018 1:47 PM, Trahe, Fiona wrote:
quoted
Hi Shally, Ahmed,
Sorry for the delay in replying,
Comments below
quoted
-----Original Message-----
From: Verma, Shally [mailto:Shally.Verma@cavium.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2018 7:41 AM
To: Ahmed Mansour <redacted>; Trahe, Fiona <redacted>;
dev@dpdk.org
Cc: Athreya, Narayana Prasad <redacted>; Gupta, Ashish
[off-list ref]; Sahu, Sunila [off-list ref]; De Lara Guarch, Pablo
[off-list ref]; Challa, Mahipal [off-list ref]; Jain, Deepak K
[off-list ref]; Hemant Agrawal [off-list ref]; Roy Pledge
[off-list ref]; Youri Querry [off-list ref]
Subject: RE: [RFC v2] doc compression API for DPDK

Hi Ahmed,
quoted
-----Original Message-----
From: Ahmed Mansour [mailto:ahmed.mansour@nxp.com]
Sent: 02 February 2018 01:53
To: Trahe, Fiona <redacted>; Verma, Shally <redacted>;
dev@dpdk.org
quoted
quoted
quoted
quoted
Cc: Athreya, Narayana Prasad <redacted>; Gupta, Ashish
[off-list ref]; Sahu, Sunila
quoted
[off-list ref]; De Lara Guarch, Pablo [off-list ref]; Challa,
Mahipal
quoted
[off-list ref]; Jain, Deepak K [off-list ref]; Hemant Agrawal
[off-list ref]; Roy
quoted
Pledge [off-list ref]; Youri Querry [off-list ref]
Subject: Re: [RFC v2] doc compression API for DPDK

On 1/31/2018 2:03 PM, Trahe, Fiona wrote:
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Hi Ahmed, Shally,

///snip///
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D.1.1 Stateless and OUT_OF_SPACE
------------------------------------------------
OUT_OF_SPACE is a condition when output buffer runs out of space
and
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where PMD still has more data to produce. If PMD run into such
condition,
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then it's an error condition in stateless processing.
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In such case, PMD resets itself and return with status
RTE_COMP_OP_STATUS_OUT_OF_SPACE with produced=consumed=0
i.e.
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no input read, no output written.
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Application can resubmit an full input with larger output buffer size.
[Ahmed] Can we add an option to allow the user to read the data that
was
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produced while still reporting OUT_OF_SPACE? this is mainly useful for
decompression applications doing search.
[Shally] It is there but applicable for stateful operation type (please refer to
handling out_of_space under
quoted
"Stateful Section").
By definition, "stateless" here means that application (such as IPCOMP)
knows maximum output size
quoted
guaranteedly and ensure that uncompressed data size cannot grow more
than provided output buffer.
quoted
Such apps can submit an op with type = STATELESS and provide full input,
then PMD assume it has
quoted
sufficient input and output and thus doesn't need to maintain any contexts
after op is processed.
quoted
If application doesn't know about max output size, then it should process it
as stateful op i.e. setup op
quoted
with type = STATEFUL and attach a stream so that PMD can maintain
relevant context to handle such
quoted
condition.
[Fiona] There may be an alternative that's useful for Ahmed, while still
respecting the stateless concept.
In Stateless case where a PMD reports OUT_OF_SPACE in decompression
case
it could also return consumed=0, produced = x, where x>0. X indicates the
amount of valid data which has
 been written to the output buffer. It is not complete, but if an application
wants to search it it may be sufficient.
If the application still wants the data it must resubmit the whole input with a
bigger output buffer, and
 decompression will be repeated from the start, it
 cannot expect to continue on as the PMD has not maintained state, history
or data.
I don't think there would be any need to indicate this in capabilities, PMDs
which cannot provide this
functionality would always return produced=consumed=0, while PMDs which
can could set produced > 0.
If this works for you both, we could consider a similar case for compression.
[Shally] Sounds Fine to me. Though then in that case, consume should also be updated to
actual
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consumed by PMD.
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Setting consumed = 0 with produced > 0 doesn't correlate.
[Ahmed]I like Fiona's suggestion, but I also do not like the implication
of returning consumed = 0. At the same time returning consumed = y
implies to the user that it can proceed from the middle. I prefer the
consumed = 0 implementation, but I think a different return is needed to
distinguish it from OUT_OF_SPACE that the use can recover from. Perhaps
OUT_OF_SPACE_RECOVERABLE and OUT_OF_SPACE_TERMINATED. This also allows
future PMD implementations to provide recover-ability even in STATELESS
mode if they so wish. In this model STATELESS or STATEFUL would be a
hint for the PMD implementation to make optimizations for each case, but
it does not force the PMD implementation to limit functionality if it
can provide recover-ability.
[Fiona] So you're suggesting the following:
OUT_OF_SPACE - returned only on stateful operation. Not an error. Op.produced
    can be used and next op in stream should continue on from op.consumed+1.
OUT_OF_SPACE_TERMINATED - returned only on stateless operation.
    Error condition, no recovery possible.
    consumed=produced=0. Application must resubmit all input data with
    a bigger output buffer.
OUT_OF_SPACE_RECOVERABLE - returned only on stateless operation, some recovery possible.
     - consumed = 0, produced > 0. Application must resubmit all input data with
        a bigger output buffer. However in decompression case, data up to produced
        in dst buffer may be inspected/searched. Never happens in compression
        case as output data would be meaningless.
     - consumed > 0, produced > 0. PMD has stored relevant state and history and so
        can convert to stateful, using op.produced and continuing from consumed+1.
I don't expect our PMDs to use this last case, but maybe this works for others?
I'm not convinced it's not just adding complexity. It sounds like a version of stateful
without a stream, and maybe less efficient?
If so should it respect the FLUSH flag? Which would have been FULL or FINAL in the op.
Or treat it as FLUSH_NONE or SYNC? I don't know why an application would not
simply have submitted a STATEFUL request if this is the behaviour it wants?
[Ahmed] I was actually suggesting the removal of OUT_OF_SPACE entirely
and replacing it with
OUT_OF_SPACE_TERMINATED - returned only on stateless operation.
       Error condition, no recovery possible.
       - consumed=0 produced=amount of data produced. Application must
resubmit all input data with
         a bigger output buffer to process all of the op
OUT_OF_SPACE_RECOVERABLE -  Normally returned on stateful operation. Not
an error. Op.produced
   can be used and next op in stream should continue on from op.consumed+1.
       -  consumed > 0, produced > 0. PMD has stored relevant state and
history and so
           can continue using op.produced and continuing from consumed+1.

We would not return OUT_OF_SPACE_RECOVERABLE in stateless mode in our
implementation either.

Regardless of speculative future PMDs. The more important aspect of this
for today is that the return status clearly determines
the meaning of "consumed". If it is RECOVERABLE then consumed is
meaningful. if it is TERMINATED then consumed in meaningless.
This way we take away the ambiguity of having OUT_OF_SPACE mean two
different user work flows.

A speculative future PMD may be designed to return RECOVERABLE for
stateless ops that are attached to streams.
A future PMD may look to see if an op has a stream is attached and write
out the state there and go into recoverable mode.
in essence this leaves the choice up to the implementation and allows
the PMD to take advantage of stateless optimizations
so long as a "RECOVERABLE" scenario is rarely hit. The PMD will dump
context as soon as it fully processes an op. It will only
write context out in cases where the op chokes.
This futuristic PMD should ignore the FLUSH since this STATELESS mode as
indicated by the user and optimize
[Shally] IMO, it looks okay to have two separate return code TERMINATED and RECOVERABLE with
definition as you mentioned and seem doable.
So then it mean all following conditions:
a. stateless with flush = full/final, no stream pointer provided , PMD can return TERMINATED i.e.
user
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has to start all over again, it's a failure (as in current definition)
b. stateless with flush = full/final, stream pointer provided, here it's up to PMD to return either
TERMINATED or RECOVERABLE depending upon its ability (note if Recoverable, then PMD will
maintain
quoted
quoted
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states in stream pointer)
c. stateful with flush = full / NO_SYNC, stream pointer always there, PMD will
TERMINATED/RECOVERABLE depending on STATEFUL_COMPRESSION/DECOMPRESSION feature
flag
quoted
quoted
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enabled or not
[Fiona] I don't think the flush flag is relevant - it could be out of space on any flush flag, and if out of
space
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should ignore the flush flag.
Is there a need for TERMINATED? - I didn't think it would ever need to be returned in stateful case.
 Why the ref to feature flag? If a PMD doesn't support a feature I think it should fail the op - not with
 out-of space, but unsupported or similar. Or it would fail on stream creation.
[Ahmed] Agreed with Fiona. The flush flag only matters on success. By
definition the PMD should return OUT_OF_SPACE_RECOVERABLE in stateful
mode when it runs out of space.
@Shally If the user did not provide a stream, then the PMD should
probably return TERMINATED every time. I am not sure we should make a
"really smart" PMD which returns RECOVERABLE even if no stream pointer
was given. In that case the PMD must give some ID back to the caller
that the caller can use to "recover" the op. I am not sure how it would
be implemented in the PMD and when does the PMD decide to retire streams
belonging to dead ops that the caller decided not to "recover".
quoted
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and one more exception case is:
d. stateless with flush = full, no stream pointer provided, PMD can return RECOVERABLE i.e. PMD
internally maintained that state somehow and consumed & produced > 0, so user can start
consumed+1
quoted
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but there's restriction on user not to alter or change op until it is fully processed?!
[Fiona] Why the need for this case?
There's always a restriction on user not to alter or change op until it is fully processed.
If a PMD can do this - why doesn't it create a stream when that API is called - and then it's same as b?
[Ahmed] Agreed. The user should not touch an op once enqueued until they
receive it in dequeue. We ignore the flush in stateless mode. We assume
it to be final every time.
[Shally] Agreed and am not in favour of supporting such implementation either. Just listed out different
possibilities up here to better visualise Ahmed requirements/applicability of TERMINATED and
RECOVERABLE.
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API currently takes care of case a and c, and case b can be supported if specification accept another
proposal which mention optional usage of stream with stateless.
[Fiona] API has this, but as we agreed, not optional to call the create_stream() with an op_type
parameter (stateful/stateless). PMD can return NULL or provide a stream, if the latter then that
stream must be attached to ops.

 Until then API takes no difference to
quoted
case b and c i.e. we can have op such as,
- type= stateful with flush = full/final, stream pointer provided, PMD can return
TERMINATED/RECOVERABLE according to its ability

Case d , is something exceptional, if there's requirement in PMDs to support it, then believe it will be
doable with concept of different return code.
[Fiona] That's not quite how I understood it. Can it be simpler and only following cases?
a. stateless with flush = full/final, no stream pointer provided , PMD can return TERMINATED i.e. user
    has to start all over again, it's a failure (as in current definition).
    consumed = 0, produced=amount of data produced. This is usually 0, but in decompression
    case a PMD may return > 0 and application may find it useful to inspect that data.
b. stateless with flush = full/final, stream pointer provided, here it's up to PMD to return either
    TERMINATED or RECOVERABLE depending upon its ability (note if Recoverable, then PMD will
maintain
quoted
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    states in stream pointer)
c. stateful with flush = any, stream pointer always there, PMD will return RECOVERABLE.
    op.produced can be used and next op in stream should continue on from op.consumed+1.
    Consumed=0, produced=0 is an unusual but allowed case. I'm not sure if it could ever happen, but
    no need to change state to TERMINATED in this case. There may be useful state/history
    stored in the PMD, even though no output produced yet.
[Ahmed] Agreed
[Shally] Sounds good.
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D.2 Compression API Stateful operation
----------------------------------------------------------
 A Stateful operation in DPDK compression means application invokes
enqueue burst() multiple times to process related chunk of data either
because
quoted
- Application broke data into several ops, and/or
- PMD ran into out_of_space situation during input processing

In case of either one or all of the above conditions, PMD is required to
maintain state of op across enque_burst() calls and
quoted
ops are setup with op_type RTE_COMP_OP_STATEFUL, and begin with
flush value = RTE_COMP_NO/SYNC_FLUSH and end at flush value
RTE_COMP_FULL/FINAL_FLUSH.
quoted
D.2.1 Stateful operation state maintenance
---------------------------------------------------------------
It is always an ideal expectation from application that it should parse
through all related chunk of source data making its mbuf-chain and
enqueue
quoted
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it for stateless processing.
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However, if it need to break it into several enqueue_burst() calls, then
an
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expected call flow would be something like:
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enqueue_burst( |op.no_flush |)
[Ahmed] The work is now in flight to the PMD.The user will call dequeue
burst in a loop until all ops are received. Is this correct?
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deque_burst(op) // should dequeue before we enqueue next
[Shally] Yes. Ideally every submitted op need to be dequeued. However
this illustration is specifically in
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context of stateful op processing to reflect if a stream is broken into
chunks, then each chunk should be
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submitted as one op at-a-time with type = STATEFUL and need to be
dequeued first before next chunk is
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enqueued.
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enqueue_burst( |op.no_flush |)
deque_burst(op) // should dequeue before we enqueue next
enqueue_burst( |op.full_flush |)
[Ahmed] Why now allow multiple work items in flight? I understand that
occasionaly there will be OUT_OF_SPACE exception. Can we just
distinguish
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the response in exception cases?
[Shally] Multiples ops are allowed in flight, however condition is each op in
such case is independent of
quoted
each other i.e. belong to different streams altogether.
Earlier (as part of RFC v1 doc) we did consider the proposal to process all
related chunks of data in single
quoted
burst by passing them as ops array but later found that as not-so-useful for
PMD handling for various
quoted
reasons. You may please refer to RFC v1 doc review comments for same.
[Fiona] Agree with Shally. In summary, as only one op can be processed at a
time, since each needs the
state of the previous, to allow more than 1 op to be in-flight at a time would
force PMDs to implement internal queueing and exception handling for
OUT_OF_SPACE conditions you mention.
[Ahmed] But we are putting the ops on qps which would make them
sequential. Handling OUT_OF_SPACE conditions would be a little bit more
complex but doable.
[Fiona] In my opinion this is not doable, could be very inefficient.
There may be many streams.
The PMD would have to have an internal queue per stream so
it could adjust the next src offset and length in the OUT_OF_SPACE case.
And this may ripple back though all subsequent ops in the stream as each
source len is increased and its dst buffer is not big enough.
[Ahmed] Regarding multi op OUT_OF_SPACE handling.
The caller would still need to adjust
the src length/output buffer as you say. The PMD cannot handle
OUT_OF_SPACE internally.
After OUT_OF_SPACE occurs, the PMD should reject all ops in this stream
until it gets explicit
confirmation from the caller to continue working on this stream. Any ops
received by
the PMD should be returned to the caller with status STREAM_PAUSED since
the caller did not
explicitly acknowledge that it has solved the OUT_OF_SPACE issue.
These semantics can be enabled by adding a new function to the API
perhaps stream_resume().
This allows the caller to indicate that it acknowledges that it has seen
the issue and this op
should be used to resolve the issue. Implementations that do not support
this mode of use
can push back immediately after one op is in flight. Implementations
that support this use
mode can allow many ops from the same session
[Shally] Is it still in context of having single burst where all op belongs to one stream? If yes, I would
still
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say it would add an overhead to PMDs especially if it is expected to work closer to HW (which I think
is
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the case with DPDK PMD).
Though your approach is doable but why this all cannot be in a layer above PMD? i.e. a layer above
PMD
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can either pass one-op at a time with burst size = 1 OR can make chained mbuf of input and output
and
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pass than as one op.
Is it just to ease applications of chained mbuf burden or do you see any performance /use-case
impacting aspect also?

if it is in context where each op belong to different stream in a burst, then why do we need
stream_pause and resume? It is a expectations from app to pass more output buffer with consumed
+ 1
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from next call onwards as it has already
seen OUT_OF_SPACE.
[Ahmed] Yes, this would add extra overhead to the PMD. Our PMD
implementation rejects all ops that belong to a stream that has entered
"RECOVERABLE" state for one reason or another. The caller must
acknowledge explicitly that it has received news of the problem before
the PMD allows this stream to exit "RECOVERABLE" state. I agree with you
that implementing this functionality in the software layer above the PMD
is a bad idea since the latency reductions are lost.
[Shally] Just reiterating, I rather meant other way around i.e. I see it easier to put all such complexity in a
layer above PMD.
quoted
This setup is useful in latency sensitive applications where the latency
of buffering multiple ops into one op is significant. We found latency
makes a significant difference in search applications where the PMD
competes with software decompression.
[Fiona] I see, so when all goes well, you get best-case latency, but when 
out-of-space occurs latency will probably be worse.
quoted
quoted
[Fiona] I still have concerns with this and would not want to support in our PMD.
TO make sure I understand, you want to send a burst of ops, with several from same stream.
If one causes OUT_OF_SPACE_RECOVERABLE, then the PMD should not process any
subsequent ops in that stream.
Should it return them in a dequeue_burst() with status still NOT_PROCESSED?
Or somehow drop them? How?
While still processing ops form other streams.
[Ahmed] This is exactly correct. It should return them with
NOT_PROCESSED. Yes, the PMD should continue processing other streams.
quoted
As we want to offload each op to hardware with as little CPU processing as possible we
would not want to open up each op to see which stream it's attached to and
make decisions to do per-stream storage, or drop it, or bypass hw and dequeue without processing.
[Ahmed] I think I might have missed your point here, but I will try to
answer. There is no need to "cushion" ops in DPDK. DPDK should send ops
to the PMD and the PMD should reject until stream_continue() is called.
The next op to be sent by the user will have a special marker in it to
inform the PMD to continue working on this stream. Alternatively the
DPDK layer can be made "smarter" to fail during the enqueue by checking
the stream and its state, but like you say this adds additional CPU
overhead during the enqueue.
I am curious. In a simple synchronous use case. How do we prevent users
from putting multiple ops in flight that belong to a single stream? Do
we just currently say it is undefined behavior? Otherwise we would have
to check the stream and incur the CPU overhead.
[Fiona] We don't do anything to prevent it. It's undefined. IMO on data path in
DPDK model we expect good behaviour and don't have to error check for things like this.

In our PMD if we got a burst of 20 ops, we allocate 20 spaces on the hw q, then 
build and send those messages. If we found an op from a stream which already
had one inflight, we'd have to hold that back, store in a sw stream-specific holding queue,
only send 19 to hw. We cannot send multiple ops from same stream to
the hw as it fans them out and does them in parallel.
Once the enqueue_burst() returns, there is no processing 
context which would spot that the first has completed
and send the next op to the hw. On a dequeue_burst() we would spot this, 
in that context could process the next op in the stream.
On out of space, instead of processing the next op we would have to transfer
all unprocessed ops from the stream to the dequeue result.
Some parts of this are doable, but seems likely to add a lot more latency, 
we'd need to add extra threads and timers to move ops from the sw
queue to the hw q to get any benefit, and these constructs would add 
context switching and CPU cycles. So we prefer to push this responsibility
to above the API and it can achieve similar.

 
quoted
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Maybe we could add a capability if this behaviour is important for you?
e.g. ALLOW_ENQUEUE_MULTIPLE_STATEFUL_OPS ?
Our PMD would set this to 0. And expect no more than one op from a stateful stream
to be in flight at any time.
[Ahmed] That makes sense. This way the different DPDK implementations do
not have to add extra checking for unsupported cases.
[Shally] @ahmed, If I summarise your use-case, this is how to want to PMD to support?
- a burst *carry only one stream* and all ops then assumed to be belong to that stream? (please note,
here burst is not carrying more than one stream)
-PMD will submit one op at a time to HW?
-if processed successfully, push it back to completion queue with status = SUCCESS. If failed or run to
into OUT_OF_SPACE, then push it to completion queue with status = FAILURE/
OUT_OF_SPACE_RECOVERABLE and rest with status = NOT_PROCESSED and return with enqueue count
= total # of ops submitted originally with burst?
-app assumes all have been enqueued, so it go and dequeue all ops
-on seeing an op with OUT_OF_SPACE_RECOVERABLE, app resubmit a burst of ops with call to
stream_continue/resume API starting from op which encountered OUT_OF_SPACE and others as
NOT_PROCESSED with updated input and output buffer?
-repeat until *all* are dequeued with status = SUCCESS or *any* with status = FAILURE? If anytime
failure is seen, then app start whole processing all over again or just drop this burst?!

If all of above is true, then I think we should add another API such as rte_comp_enque_single_stream()
which will be functional under Feature Flag = ALLOW_ENQUEUE_MULTIPLE_STATEFUL_OPS or better
name is SUPPORT_ENQUEUE_SINGLE_STREAM?!
[Fiona] Am curious about Ahmed's response to this. I didn't get that a burst should carry only one stream
Or get how this makes a difference? As there can be many enqueue_burst() calls done before an dequeue_burst() 
Maybe you're thinking the enqueue_burst() would be a blocking call that would not return until all the ops
had been processed? This would turn it into a synchronous call which isn't the intent.
quoted
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Regarding the ordering of ops
We do force serialization of ops belonging to a stream in STATEFUL
operation. Related ops do
not go out of order and are given to available PMDs one at a time.
quoted
quoted
The question is this mode of use useful for real
life applications or would we be just adding complexity? The technical
advantage of this is that processing of Stateful ops is interdependent
and PMDs can take advantage of caching and other optimizations to make
processing related ops much faster than switching on every op. PMDs have
maintain state of more than 32 KB for DEFLATE for every stream.
quoted
quoted
If the application has all the data, it can put it into chained mbufs in a single
op rather than
multiple ops, which avoids pushing all that complexity down to the PMDs.
[Ahmed] I think that your suggested scheme of putting all related mbufs
into one op may be the best solution without the extra complexity of
handling OUT_OF_SPACE cases, while still allowing the enqueuer extra
time If we have a way of marking mbufs as ready for consumption. The
enqueuer may not have all the data at hand but can enqueue the op with a
couple of empty mbus marked as not ready for consumption. The enqueuer
will then update the rest of the mbufs to ready for consumption once the
data is added. This introduces a race condition. A second flag for each
mbuf can be updated by the PMD to indicate that it processed it or not.
This way in cases where the PMD beat the application to the op, the
application will just update the op to point to the first unprocessed
mbuf and resend it to the PMD.
[Fiona] This doesn't sound safe. You want to add data to a stream after you've
enqueued the op. You would have to write to op.src.length at a time when the PMD
might be reading it. Sounds like a lock would be necessary.
Once the op has been enqueued, my understanding is its ownership is handed
over to the PMD and the application should not touch it until it has been dequeued.
I don't think it's a good idea to change this model.
Can't the application just collect a stream of data in chained mbufs until it has
enough to send an op, then construct the op and while waiting for that op to
complete, accumulate the next batch of chained mbufs? Only construct the next op
after the previous one is complete, based on the result of the previous one.
[Ahmed] Fair enough. I agree with you. I imagined it in a different way
in which each mbuf would have its own length.
The advantage to gain is in applications where there is one PMD user,
the down time between ops can be significant and setting up a single
producer consumer pair significantly reduces the CPU cycles and PMD down
time.

////snip////
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