SIMD extensions have been used since early 70’s in vector programming. They are mainly CPU specific and not Oracle specific. Nevertheless, they are used by Oracle and especially by In-Memory option to perform operations against Oracle In-Memory Compression Units. Oracle exploits SIMD extensions to perform data parallelism but without concurrency. In this presentation, the data structure (vectors), CPU Registers, SIMD instructions and how they are used outside Oracle will be presented. As a consequence, we will see how the combination of both (data structure and instructions) can significantly reduce the number of operations. During this part, code samples written in C will be presented and executed to demonstrate it. Then, a focus will be made on SIMD instructions inside Oracle and how it uses them: usage of specific libraries and Oracle kernel components that should use SIMD instructions. The GNU Linux debugger helps us in this way to detect internal procedures usage that are based on SIMD instructions. It helps us to establish the link between SIMD instructions and Oracle operations like filters and aggregates. Then, it will be showed how SIMD instructions are involved in performance improvement. Finally, a conclusion will be made on “why Oracle In-Memory performances would be improved in future versions”. This presentation will help user to understand, by a bottom up analysis, how non-specific programming techniques are used by Oracle to improve performance with In-Memory Option and how the column format can benefit from this improvement.

1. SIMD Instructions outside and inside
Oracle 12c
Laurent Léturgez – 2016

2. Whoami
•Oracle Consultant since 2001
•Former developer (C, Java, perl, PL/SQL)
•Owner@Premiseo: Data Management on Premise and in the Cloud
•Blogger since 2004
• http://laurent.leturgez.free.fr (In french and discontinued)
• http://laurent-leturgez.com
•Twitter : @lleturgez

3. Agenda
•SIMD Instructions, outside Oracle 12c
•What is a SIMD instruction ?
•Will my application use SIMD ?
•Raw Performance
•SIMD Instructions, inside Oracle 12c
•How SIMD instructions are used inside Oracle 12c
•Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c

4. Caveats
•Most of the topics are from
• My own researches
• My past life as a developer
•Some of the topics are about internals, so:
• Analysis and conclusion may be incomplete
• Future versions of Oracle may change the features
•Tests have been done with Oracle 12.1.0.2, Oracle Enterprise
Linux 7.3 (UEKR3), VMWare Fusion 8 (And VirtualBox)

5. Before we start …
•Some fundamentals (from Dennis Yurichev’s book)
• CPU register : […]The easiest way to understand a register is to think of it as an
untyped temporary variable. Imagine if you were working with high-level PL1
and could only use eight 32-bit (or 64-bit) variables. Yet a lot can be done using
just these!
• Instruction : A primitive CPU command. The simplest examples include:
moving data between registers, working with memory and arithmetic
primitives. As a rule, each CPU has its own instruction set architecture (ISA).
• Assembly language : Mnemonic code and some extensions like macros which
are intended to make a programmer’s life easier.
http://beginners.re/Reverse_Engineering_for_Beginners-en.pdf

6. Agenda
•SIMD Instructions, outside Oracle 12c
•What is a SIMD instruction ?
•Will my application use SIMD ?
•Raw Performance
•SIMD Instructions, inside Oracle 12c
•How SIMD instructions are used inside Oracle 12c
•Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c

7. SIMD instructions … outside Oracle 12c
• SIMD stands for Single Instruction Multiple Data
• Process multiple data
• In one CPU instruction
• Based on
• Specific registers
• Specific CPU instructions and sets of instructions
• Not Oracle specific
• CPU Architecture specific
• Intel
• IBM (Altivec)
• Sparc v9 (VIS)
• This presentation is mainly about Intel architecture

8. SIMD instructions … outside Oracle 12c
•What is a SIMD register ?
•It’s a CPU register
•Wider than traditional registers (RDI, RSI, R8, R9 etc.)
• 128 up to 512 bits wide
• Contains many data

9. SIMD instructions … outside Oracle 12c
•How does it work ? Scalar operation
• an array of 4 integers {1,2,3,4}
• add 1 to each value
Reg1
Reg2
Reg3
CPU
RAM
In
Out
2 3 41
1
Reg1
Reg2
Reg3
CPU
RAM
In
Out
2 3 41
1
1
Reg1
Reg2
Reg3
CPU
RAM
In
Out
2 3 41
1
1
2
Reg1
Reg2
Reg3
CPU
RAM
In
Out
2 3 41
1
1
2
2
Reg1
Reg2
Reg3
CPU
RAM
In
Out
2 3 41
4
1
5
3 4 52
…/…
LOAD ADD SAVE
4 LOAD
4 ADD
4 SAVE

10. SIMD instructions … outside Oracle 12c
•How does it work ? SIMD operation
• an array of 4 integers {1,2,3,4}
• add 1 to each value
SIMD Reg1
CPU
RAM
In
Out
2 3 41
1 1 11SIMD Reg2
SIMD Reg3
SIMD Reg1
CPU
RAM
In
Out
2 3 41
2 3 41
1 1 11SIMD Reg2
SIMD Reg3
SIMD Reg1
CPU
RAM
In
Out
2 3 41
2 3 41
1 1 11
3 4 52
SIMD Reg2
SIMD Reg3
SIMD Reg1
CPU
RAM
In
Out
2 3 41
3 4 52
2 3 41
1 1 11
3 4 52
SIMD Reg2
SIMD Reg3
LOAD ADD SAVE

11. SIMD instructions … outside Oracle 12c
Instruction set MMX SSE SSE2/SSE3/SSSE3/SSE
4
AVX/AVX2 AVX3 or AVX512
Register Size 64 Bits 128 bits 128 bits 256 Bits 512 bits
# Registers 8 8 16 16 32
Register Name MM0 to MM7 XMM0 to XMM7 XMM0 to XMM15 YMM0 to YMM15 ZMM0 to ZMM31
Processors Pentium II Pentium III Pentium IV to Nehalem Sandy Bridge - Haswell Skylake (initially
announced but not
available yet)
Maybe on Kaby Lake Xeon
chip
Other Only four 32 bits single
precision floating point
numbers
Usage expansion (two 64
bits double precision,
four 32 bits integers and
up to sixteen 8 bits bytes)
Three operand
instructions (non
destructive) : A+B=C
rather than A=A+B
Alignments requirements
relaxed

12. SIMD instructions … outside Oracle 12c
• Intel API (C/C++) : Intel Intrinsics Guide
https://software.intel.com/sites/landingpage/IntrinsicsGuide/
• Sample code:
https://app.box.com/simdSampleC-2015

13. Agenda
•SIMD Instructions, outside Oracle 12c
•What is a SIMD instruction ?
•Will my application use SIMD ?
•Raw Performance
•SIMD Instructions, inside Oracle 12c
•How SIMD instructions are used inside Oracle 12c
•Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c

14. •It depends on :
•Hardware
• Consult processors datasheets to see which instruction set extensions are
used (if many)
• http://ark.intel.com/#@Processors
•Hypervisor
• Some (old) hypervisors do not support modern extensions
• VirtualBox versions <5.0 don’t support SSE4, AVX and AVX2
• Hyper-V on W2008R2-SP1 needs patch for specific processors to support
AVX
Will my application use SIMD registers and instructions ?

15. •It depends on the Operating System
•AVX (256 bits) is supported from
• Linux Kernel >= 2.6.30
• Redhat EL5 : 2.6.18
• Oracle EL5 w/UEK : 2.6.32
AVX needs xsave kernel parameter
• Solaris 10 upd 10 and Solaris 11 (x86-64)
• Windows 2008 R2 SP1
Will my application use SIMD registers and instructions ?

16. •It depends on the compiler
•GCC
• > 4.6 for AVX support
• Use of specific switches (-msse2, -msse4.1, msse4.2, -mavx, -mavx2 …)
•Intel C/C++ Compiler (ICC)
• > 11.1 for AVX Support and > 13.0 for AVX2 support
• Use of specific switches (-xsse4.2, -xavx, -xCORE-AVX2 …)
•Beware of optimization switches (-O1,-O2, -O3)
•More … disassemble (if you are allowed to  )
• Registers
• Assembly language instructions
Will my application use SIMD registers and instructions ?

17. Agenda
•SIMD Instructions, outside Oracle 12c
•What is a SIMD instruction ?
•Will my application use SIMD ?
•Raw Performance
•SIMD Instructions, inside Oracle 12c
•How SIMD instructions are used inside Oracle 12c
•Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c

18. • Based on a C program
• Used CPU: Haswell microarchitecture (Core i7-4960HQ). AVX/AVX2
enabled
• 3 tests : No SIMD, SSE4, AVX
• Input: one array containing 1Million values.
• Goal: Add 1 to each value, each million values repeated 4k, 8k, 16k and
32k times
• CPU Time(s) = f(#rows)
“Quick and Dirty” Sample code available here:
https://app.box.com/s/ibmnbblpho4xtbeq2x8ir60nrk37208v
Raw Performance

19. 10.35
20.46
42.35
85.64
3.3 6.81
13.73
25.58
1.96 3.51
7.23
15.15
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
4096 M. ROWS 8192 M. ROWS 16384 M. ROWS 32768 M. ROWS
CPUTime(Sec)
RAW Performance (CPU) for SIMD Instructions
NO SIMD SSE4 (XMM Registers) AVX (YMM Registers)
Raw Performance

20. Agenda
•SIMD Instructions, outside Oracle 12c
•What is a SIMD instruction ?
•Will my application use SIMD ?
•Raw Performance
•SIMD Instructions, inside Oracle 12c
•How SIMD instructions are used inside Oracle 12c
•Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c

21. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
•In Memory Data Structure
• In Memory Compression Unit : IMCU
• IMCU is the unit of column store allocation
• Target size is 1M rows
(controlled by _inmemory_imcu_target_rows in 12.1, replaced by
_inmemory_imcu_target_maxrows in 12.2 (?))
• One IMCU can contain more than one column
• Each column in one IMCU is a column unit (CU)

22. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
•In memory column store storage indexes
• For each column unit, min and max values are maintained in a
storage index
• Storage Indexes provide CU pruning
• Information about CU available in GV$IM_COL_CU
(Undocumented. See Bug ID 19361690)
IMCU Pruning

23. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
• The way your data is sorted matters for best IMCU pruning

24. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
•SIMD extensions are used with In Memory storage indexes
for efficient filtering
1. IM Storage Indexes do IMCU pruning
2. SIMD instructions apply efficiently filter predicates
IMCU
Pruning
Prod-id
10
10
14
14
10
Filtering
with SIMD

25. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
•Oracle 12c uses specific libraries for SIMD (and compression)
•Located in $ORACLE_HOME/lib
• libshpksse4212.so for SSE4.2 extensions
Compiled with ICC v12 with specific xsse4.2 switch
• libshpkavx12.so for AVX extensions
Compiled with ICC v12 with specific xavx switch
• libshpkavx212.so for AVX2 extensions
Not totally implemented (8 functions implemented in 12.1, 824 in 12.2)
No ICC avx2 switch used because ICC v12 doesn’t support AVX2
•Thanks Tanel Pöder for this 

26. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
•Oracle SIMD related functions
• Located in kdzk kernel module (HPK)
• Part of Advanced Compression library (ADVCMP)
• Easily tracked with systemtap

27. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
SQL> select count(*) from s where amount_sold=20;
COUNT(*)
----------
140
SQL> select count(*) from s where amount_sold>20;
COUNT(*)
----------
666306
[oracle@oel7-im demo1]$ stap -x 7503 ./trc_orcl_simd_func_121.stp
Begin.^C
End.
Function: count
kdzk_lbiv_ictx_ini2_dydi: 4
kdzk_lbiviter_dydi: 2
kdzk_lbivset_range_dydi: 9
kdzk_lbivclr_range_dydi: 9
kdzk_eq_dynp_32bit: 9
kdzk_lbivones_dydi: 2
[oracle@oel7-im demo1]$ stap -x 7503 ./trc_orcl_simd_func_121.stp
Begin.^C
End.
Function: count
kdzk_lbivset_range_dydi: 9
kdzk_lbivclr_range_dydi: 9
kdzk_gt_dynp_32bit: 9
kdzk_lbiviter_dydi: 654
kdzk_lbiv_ictx_ini2_dydi: 1308
kdzk_lbivones_dydi: 654

28. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
•How Oracle uses SIMD extensions ?
It depends on many parameters
• OS Level : /proc/cpuinfo
• AVX and AVX2 support
• SSE4 Support only

29. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
•Which library am I using ?
•pmap
• AVX support
• SSE4 support

30. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
•Which compiler options have been used ?
• Read “comment” section in ELF
• Read the corresponding compiler documentation
[oracle@oel7 conf]$ readelf -p .comment $ORACLE_HOME/lib/libshpkavx12.so |
> | egrep -i 'intel|gcc' | egrep 'xavx|mavx’
[ 2c] -?comment:Intel(R) C Intel(R) 64 Compiler XE for applications running on
Intel(R) 64, Version 12.0 Build 20120731
…/…
-DNTEV_USE_EPOLL -DNET_USE_LDAP -xavx

31. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
•How are SIMD registers used by Oracle ?
• GDB
• To get and know the call stack (backtrace)
• To set breakpoints on interesting functions
• To view register contents (traditional and SIMD)
• “Info registers” for traditional registers
• “Info all-registers” for all registers (SIMD reg included)
• (gdb) print $ymmX.<format>
Format can be v8_float, v4_double, v32_int8, v16_int16, v8_int32, v4_int64, or v2_int128

32. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
break kdzk_gt_dynp_32bit
commands 1
bt
continue
end;
Breakpoint 1, 0x00007f2a341b2e30 in kdzk_gt_dynp_32bit () from
/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/libshpkavx12.so
#0 0x00007f2a341b2e30 in kdzk_gt_dynp_32bit () from
/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/lib/libshpkavx12.so
#1 0x000000000b7041bc in kdzk_cmp ()
#2 0x000000000b4deada in kdzdcol_theta_imc_sep ()
#3 0x00000000038a075f in kdzdcol_theta ()
#4 0x000000000b577726 in kdpEvalTheta ()
#5 0x000000000b57bad0 in kdpPredEval ()
#6 0x00000000038a02ef in kdzt_acmp_predeval ()
#7 0x0000000009fb9758 in kdstf11101010001101km ()
#8 0x000000000cd2de55 in kdsttgr ()
#9 0x000000000cd73576 in qertbFetch ()
#10 0x000000000cd9ed50 in qergsFetch ()
#11 0x000000000cbd424b in opifch2 ()
#12 0x0000000002207899 in kpoal8 ()
#13 0x000000000cbdaecd in opiodr ()
#14 0x000000000ce0ffab in ttcpip ()
#15 0x0000000001bcd8b6 in opitsk ()
#16 0x0000000001bd2241 in opiino ()
#17 0x000000000cbdaecd in opiodr ()
#18 0x0000000001bc9a0b in opidrv ()
#19 0x00000000026d9f91 in sou2o ()
#20 0x0000000000bd680a in opimai_real ()
#21 0x00000000026e46dc in ssthrdmain ()

33. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
break kdzk_gt_dynp_32bit
commands 1
python gdb.execute("print $ymm0.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print $ymm1.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print
$ymm2.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print $ymm3.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print $ymm4.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print
$ymm5.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print $ymm6.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print $ymm7.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print
$ymm8.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print $ymm9.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print $ymm10.v2_int128");gdb.execute("print
$ymm11.v2_int128");gdb.execute("print $ymm12.v2_int128");gdb.execute("print $ymm13.v2_int128");gdb.execute("print
$ymm14.v2_int128");gdb.execute("print $ymm15.v2_int128");gdb.execute("finish"); gdb.execute("print $ymm0.v2_int128");
gdb.execute("print $ymm1.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print $ymm2.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print $ymm3.v2_int128");
gdb.execute("print $ymm4.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print $ymm5.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print $ymm6.v2_int128");
gdb.execute("print $ymm7.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print $ymm8.v2_int128"); gdb.execute("print $ymm9.v2_int128");
gdb.execute("print $ymm10.v2_int128");gdb.execute("print $ymm11.v2_int128");gdb.execute("print
$ymm12.v2_int128");gdb.execute("print $ymm13.v2_int128");gdb.execute("print $ymm14.v2_int128");gdb.execute("print
$ymm15.v2_int128");
Continue
end

34. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
In red, register content has
been modified
In blue, the second part of
the SIMD registers (128 bits)
is empty

35. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
•Oracle (12.1) IM can use AVX or SSE4 extensions for SIMD operations
•When AVX is used
It uses only 128 bits out of 256 bits wide registers
• AVX adds new register-state through the 256-bit wide YMM register file
• Explicit operating system support is required to properly save and restore AVX's
expanded registers between context switches
• Without this, only AVX 128-bit is supported

36. SIMD instructions … inside Oracle 12c
•The culprit
•Oracle 12.1.0.2 is supported from EL5 onwards
•EL5 Redhat Kernel is 2.6.18 and this flag (xsave) is supported from
2.6.30 kernels
•For compatibility reasons, Oracle has had to compile its code on
2.6.18 kernels

37. Agenda
•SIMD Instructions, outside Oracle 12c
•What is a SIMD instruction ?
•Will my application use SIMD ?
•Raw Performance
•SIMD Instructions, inside Oracle 12c
•How SIMD instructions are used inside Oracle 12c
•Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c

38. Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c
•Interesting components to trace for SIMD and/or
IMCU Pruning are :
•ADVCMP_DECOMP.*
• ADVCMP_DECOMP_HPK : SIMD functions
• ADVCMP_DECOMP_PCODE : Portable Code Machine (usually not
related to specific CPU instructions)
•IM_optimizer
• Gives information about CBO calculation related to IM

39. Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c
•IM_optimizer
• Information available in trace file
• IMCU Pruning ratio
• CU decompression costing (per IMCU)
• Predicate evaluation costing (per row)
• Statement has to be parsed to get results

40. Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c
select prod_id,cust_id,time_id from laurent.s_capa_high where amount_sold=20;

41. Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c
• This information is reported in CBO trace file (10053 or SQL_costing event)

42. Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c
•ADVCMP_DECOMP
• ADVCMP_DECOMP_HPK
• Information is available in the trace file (for each IMCU processed)
• Used library and function
• Number of rows and counting algorithm
• Processing rate (comparison and decompression if relevant)
• But nothing on the results of the processing 

43. Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c
•ADVCMP_DECOMP
• ADVCMP_DECOMP_HPK
• Gives information about SIMD function usage and filtering (after IMCU
pruning)
• Example: inmemory table with NO MEMCOMPRESS or DML compression

44. Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c
•ADVCMP_DECOMP
• ADVCMP_DECOMP_HPK
• Example: inmemory compressed table
• SIMD are used only in the kdzk_eq_dict functions

45. Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c
•My thoughts about compression/decompression
• NO MEMCOMPRESS / COMPRESS FOR DML
• kdzk*dynp* functions (ex: kdzk_eq_dynp_16bit, kdzk_le_dynp_32bit etc.)
• FOR QUERY LOW / QUERY HIGH
• Dictionary Encoding (LZW ?) : kdzk_*dict* functions (ex: kdzk_eq_dict_7bit,
kdzk_le_dict_4bit etc.)
• Run Length Encoding: kdzk_burst_rle* functions (ex: kdzk_burst_rle_8bit,
kdzk_burst_rle_16bit …)
• Bit packing compression: kdzk*fixed* functions (ex: kdzk_ge_lt_fixed_32bit,
kdzk_lt_fixed_8bit …)

46. Tracing SIMD in Oracle 12c
•My thoughts about compression/decompression
• FOR CAPACITY LOW
• FOR QUERY LOW + additional proprietary compression (OZIP)
• Functions: ozip_decode_dict*, kdzk_ozip_decode* (Ex:
kdzk_ozip_decode_dydi, ozip_decode_dict_9_bit etc.)
• FOR CAPACITY HIGH
• FOR QUERY HIGH + heavy weigth compression algorithm
•Compression/decompression method depends on:
• Datatype
• Column Compression Unit size
• Column contents

47. laurent.leturgez@premiseo.com
http://laurent-leturgez.com
@lleturgez
www.premiseo.com