如何合理地估算线程池大小？

原文地址：http://ifeve.com/how-to-calculate-threadpool-size/

如何合理地估算线程池大小？

这个问题虽然看起来很小，却并不那么容易回答。大家如果有更好的方法欢迎赐教，先来一个天真的估算方法：假设要求一个系统的TPS（Transaction Per Second或者Task Per Second）至少为20，然后假设每个Transaction由一个线程完成，继续假设平均每个线程处理一个Transaction的时间为4s。那么问题转化为：

如何设计线程池大小，使得可以在1s内处理完20个Transaction？

计算过程很简单，每个线程的处理能力为0.25TPS，那么要达到20TPS，显然需要20/0.25=80个线程。

很显然这个估算方法很天真，因为它没有考虑到CPU数目。一般服务器的CPU核数为16或者32，如果有80个线程，那么肯定会带来太多不必要的线程上下文切换开销。

再来第二种简单的但不知是否可行的方法（N为CPU总核数）：

• 如果是CPU密集型应用，则线程池大小设置为N+1
• 如果是IO密集型应用，则线程池大小设置为2N+1

如果一台服务器上只部署这一个应用并且只有这一个线程池，那么这种估算或许合理，具体还需自行测试验证。

接下来在这个文档：服务器性能IO优化 中发现一个估算公式：

1	最佳线程数目 = （（线程等待时间+线程CPU时间）/线程CPU时间 ）* CPU数目

比如平均每个线程CPU运行时间为0.5s，而线程等待时间（非CPU运行时间，比如IO）为1.5s，CPU核心数为8，那么根据上面这个公式估算得到：((0.5+1.5)/0.5)*8=32。这个公式进一步转化为：

1	最佳线程数目 = （线程等待时间与线程CPU时间之比 + 1）* CPU数目

可以得出一个结论：

线程等待时间所占比例越高，需要越多线程。线程CPU时间所占比例越高，需要越少线程。

上一种估算方法也和这个结论相合。

一个系统最快的部分是CPU，所以决定一个系统吞吐量上限的是CPU。增强CPU处理能力，可以提高系统吞吐量上限。但根据短板效应，真实的系统吞吐量并不能单纯根据CPU来计算。那要提高系统吞吐量，就需要从“系统短板”（比如网络延迟、IO）着手：

• 尽量提高短板操作的并行化比率，比如多线程下载技术
• 增强短板能力，比如用NIO替代IO

第一条可以联系到Amdahl定律，这条定律定义了串行系统并行化后的加速比计算公式：

1	加速比=优化前系统耗时 / 优化后系统耗时

加速比越大，表明系统并行化的优化效果越好。Addahl定律还给出了系统并行度、CPU数目和加速比的关系，加速比为Speedup，系统串行化比率（指串行执行代码所占比率）为F，CPU数目为N：

1	Speedup <= 1 / (F + (1-F)/N)

当N足够大时，串行化比率F越小，加速比Speedup越大。

写到这里，我突然冒出一个问题。

是否使用线程池就一定比使用单线程高效呢？

答案是否定的，比如Redis就是单线程的，但它却非常高效，基本操作都能达到十万量级/s。从线程这个角度来看，部分原因在于：

• 多线程带来线程上下文切换开销，单线程就没有这种开销
• 锁

当然“Redis很快”更本质的原因在于：Redis基本都是内存操作，这种情况下单线程可以很高效地利用CPU。而多线程适用场景一般是：存在相当比例的IO和网络操作。

所以即使有上面的简单估算方法，也许看似合理，但实际上也未必合理，都需要结合系统真实情况（比如是IO密集型或者是CPU密集型或者是纯内存操作）和硬件环境（CPU、内存、硬盘读写速度、网络状况等）来不断尝试达到一个符合实际的合理估算值。

最后来一个“Dark Magic”估算方法（因为我暂时还没有搞懂它的原理），使用下面的类：

package pool_size_calculate;

import java.math.BigDecimal;
import java.math.RoundingMode;
import java.util.Timer;
import java.util.TimerTask;
import java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue;

/**
 * A class that calculates the optimal thread pool boundaries. It takes the
 * desired target utilization and the desired work queue memory consumption as
 * input and retuns thread count and work queue capacity.
 * 
 * @author Niklas Schlimm
 * 
 */
public abstract class PoolSizeCalculator {

  /**
   * The sample queue size to calculate the size of a single {@link Runnable}
   * element.
   */
  private final int SAMPLE_QUEUE_SIZE = 1000;

  /**
   * Accuracy of test run. It must finish within 20ms of the testTime
   * otherwise we retry the test. This could be configurable.
   */
  private final int EPSYLON = 20;

  /**
   * Control variable for the CPU time investigation.
   */
  private volatile boolean expired;

  /**
   * Time (millis) of the test run in the CPU time calculation.
   */
  private final long testtime = 3000;

  /**
   * Calculates the boundaries of a thread pool for a given {@link Runnable}.
   * 
   * @param targetUtilization
   *            the desired utilization of the CPUs (0 <= targetUtilization <=
   *            1)
   * @param targetQueueSizeBytes
   *            the desired maximum work queue size of the thread pool (bytes)
   */
  protected void calculateBoundaries(BigDecimal targetUtilization,
      BigDecimal targetQueueSizeBytes) {
    calculateOptimalCapacity(targetQueueSizeBytes);
    Runnable task = creatTask();
    start(task);
    start(task); // warm up phase
    long cputime = getCurrentThreadCPUTime();
    start(task); // test intervall
    cputime = getCurrentThreadCPUTime() - cputime;
    long waittime = (testtime * 1000000) - cputime;
    calculateOptimalThreadCount(cputime, waittime, targetUtilization);
  }

  private void calculateOptimalCapacity(BigDecimal targetQueueSizeBytes) {
    long mem = calculateMemoryUsage();
    BigDecimal queueCapacity = targetQueueSizeBytes.divide(new BigDecimal(
        mem), RoundingMode.HALF_UP);
    System.out.println("Target queue memory usage (bytes): "
        + targetQueueSizeBytes);
    System.out.println("createTask() produced "
        + creatTask().getClass().getName() + " which took " + mem
        + " bytes in a queue");
    System.out.println("Formula: " + targetQueueSizeBytes + " / " + mem);
    System.out.println("* Recommended queue capacity (bytes): "
        + queueCapacity);
  }

  /**
   * Brian Goetz' optimal thread count formula, see 'Java Concurrency in
   * Practice' (chapter 8.2)
   * 
   * @param cpu
   *            cpu time consumed by considered task
   * @param wait
   *            wait time of considered task
   * @param targetUtilization
   *            target utilization of the system
   */
  private void calculateOptimalThreadCount(long cpu, long wait,
      BigDecimal targetUtilization) {
    BigDecimal waitTime = new BigDecimal(wait);
    BigDecimal computeTime = new BigDecimal(cpu);
    BigDecimal numberOfCPU = new BigDecimal(Runtime.getRuntime()
        .availableProcessors());
    BigDecimal optimalthreadcount = numberOfCPU.multiply(targetUtilization)
        .multiply(
            new BigDecimal(1).add(waitTime.divide(computeTime,
                RoundingMode.HALF_UP)));
    System.out.println("Number of CPU: " + numberOfCPU);
    System.out.println("Target utilization: " + targetUtilization);
    System.out.println("Elapsed time (nanos): " + (testtime * 1000000));
    System.out.println("Compute time (nanos): " + cpu);
    System.out.println("Wait time (nanos): " + wait);
    System.out.println("Formula: " + numberOfCPU + " * "
        + targetUtilization + " * (1 + " + waitTime + " / "
        + computeTime + ")");
    System.out.println("* Optimal thread count: " + optimalthreadcount);
  }

  /**
   * Runs the {@link Runnable} over a period defined in {@link #testtime}.
   * Based on Heinz Kabbutz' ideas
   * (http://www.javaspecialists.eu/archive/Issue124.html).
   * 
   * @param task
   *            the runnable under investigation
   */
  public void start(Runnable task) {
    long start = 0;
    int runs = 0;
    do {
      if (++runs > 5) {
        throw new IllegalStateException("Test not accurate");
      }
      expired = false;
      start = System.currentTimeMillis();
      Timer timer = new Timer();
      timer.schedule(new TimerTask() {
        public void run() {
          expired = true;
        }
      }, testtime);
      while (!expired) {
        task.run();
      }
      start = System.currentTimeMillis() - start;
      timer.cancel();
    } while (Math.abs(start - testtime) > EPSYLON);
    collectGarbage(3);
  }

  private void collectGarbage(int times) {
    for (int i = 0; i < times; i++) {
      System.gc();
      try {
        Thread.sleep(10);
      } catch (InterruptedException e) {
        Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
        break;
      }
    }
  }

  /**
   * Calculates the memory usage of a single element in a work queue. Based on
   * Heinz Kabbutz' ideas
   * (http://www.javaspecialists.eu/archive/Issue029.html).
   * 
   * @return memory usage of a single {@link Runnable} element in the thread
   *         pools work queue
   */
  public long calculateMemoryUsage() {
    BlockingQueue<Runnable> queue = createWorkQueue();
    for (int i = 0; i < SAMPLE_QUEUE_SIZE; i++) {
      queue.add(creatTask());
    }
    long mem0 = Runtime.getRuntime().totalMemory()
        - Runtime.getRuntime().freeMemory();
    long mem1 = Runtime.getRuntime().totalMemory()
        - Runtime.getRuntime().freeMemory();
    queue = null;
    collectGarbage(15);
    mem0 = Runtime.getRuntime().totalMemory()
        - Runtime.getRuntime().freeMemory();
    queue = createWorkQueue();
    for (int i = 0; i < SAMPLE_QUEUE_SIZE; i++) {
      queue.add(creatTask());
    }
    collectGarbage(15);
    mem1 = Runtime.getRuntime().totalMemory()
        - Runtime.getRuntime().freeMemory();
    return (mem1 - mem0) / SAMPLE_QUEUE_SIZE;
  }

  /**
   * Create your runnable task here.
   * 
   * @return an instance of your runnable task under investigation
   */
  protected abstract Runnable creatTask();

  /**
   * Return an instance of the queue used in the thread pool.
   * 
   * @return queue instance
   */
  protected abstract BlockingQueue<Runnable> createWorkQueue();

  /**
   * Calculate current cpu time. Various frameworks may be used here,
   * depending on the operating system in use. (e.g.
   * http://www.hyperic.com/products/sigar). The more accurate the CPU time
   * measurement, the more accurate the results for thread count boundaries.
   * 
   * @return current cpu time of current thread
   */
  protected abstract long getCurrentThreadCPUTime();

}

然后自己继承这个抽象类并实现它的三个抽象方法，比如下面是我写的一个示例（任务是请求网络数据），其中我指定期望CPU利用率为1.0（即100%），任务队列总大小不超过100,000字节：

package pool_size_calculate;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.lang.management.ManagementFactory;
import java.math.BigDecimal;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue;
import java.util.concurrent.LinkedBlockingQueue;

public class SimplePoolSizeCaculatorImpl extends PoolSizeCalculator {

  @Override
  protected Runnable creatTask() {
    return new AsyncIOTask();
  }

  @Override
  protected BlockingQueue createWorkQueue() {
    return new LinkedBlockingQueue(1000);
  }

  @Override
  protected long getCurrentThreadCPUTime() {
    return ManagementFactory.getThreadMXBean().getCurrentThreadCpuTime();
  }

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    PoolSizeCalculator poolSizeCalculator = new SimplePoolSizeCaculatorImpl();
    poolSizeCalculator.calculateBoundaries(new BigDecimal(1.0), new BigDecimal(100000));
  }

}

/**
 * 自定义的异步IO任务
 * @author Will
 *
 */
class AsyncIOTask implements Runnable {

  @Override
  public void run() {
    HttpURLConnection connection = null;
    BufferedReader reader = null;
    try {
      String getURL = "http://baidu.com";
      URL getUrl = new URL(getURL);

      connection = (HttpURLConnection) getUrl.openConnection();
      connection.connect();
      reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
          connection.getInputStream()));

      String line;
      while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
        // empty loop
      }
    }

    catch (IOException e) {

    } finally {
      if(reader != null) {
        try {
          reader.close();
        }
        catch(Exception e) {

        }
      }
      connection.disconnect();
    }

  }

}

得到的输出如下：

01	Target queue memory usage (bytes): 100000

02	createTask() produced pool_size_calculate.AsyncIOTask which took 40 bytes in a queue

03	Formula: 100000 / 40

04	* Recommended queue capacity (bytes): 2500

05	Number of CPU: 4

06	Target utilization: 1

07	Elapsed time (nanos): 3000000000

08	Compute time (nanos): 47181000

09	Wait time (nanos): 2952819000

10	Formula: 4 * 1 * (1 + 2952819000 / 47181000)

11	* Optimal thread count: 256

推荐的任务队列大小为2500，线程数为256，有点出乎意料之外。我可以如下构造一个线程池：

1	ThreadPoolExecutor pool =

2	new ThreadPoolExecutor(256, 256, 0L, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS, newLinkedBlockingQueue(2500));