CPU Futures: Scheduler Support for Application Management of CPU Contention

The authors introduce CPU Futures, a system designed to enable application control of scheduling for server workloads, even during system overload. CPU Futures contains two novel components: an in-kernel herald that anticipates application CPU performance degradation and a user-level feedback controller that responds to these predictions on behalf of the application. In combination, these two subsystems enable fine-grained application control of scheduling; with this control applications can define their own policies for avoiding or mitigating performance degradation under overload.