RFC: Parallel full collection for G1

[Erik Helin]

Hi all,

currently G1 Full GC is very slow as it is done serially. In some cases 
this might not be optimal.

Although the concept is pretty well known, there are differences in how 
well a solution would fit with the rest of the G1 code. The most direct 
approach for implementing a parallel full GC for G1 is to create a 
parallel version based on the closures used for the "Serial" closures. 
Another approach for the marking phase would be to build upon the 
concurrent marking code, essentially running a concurrent mark in the 
foreground. These two approaches have different advantages:

- piggybacking on an already running concurrent mark is preferable when
   G1 is about to encounter a concurrent mode failure. Typically a
   concurrent mark is about to be done, unless the dynamic IHOP
   predictions were completely off. If so, then most of the marking work
   is already done. This could save significant amount of time in the
   following compaction phase of that full GC.

   From this point on, G1 Full GC might either compact in-place as
   before, or do an evacuating collection if or as soon as there is a
   suitable reserve of regions.

- parallelizing the closures used within the "MarkSweep framework" will
   result in a parallel full GC that can handle the worst case
   from-scratch Full GC better.  I.e. even though this algorithm will
   have to redo marking in a STW pause, it will get the most precise
   liveness information and so will be able to compact the heap more
   densely.  This approach can also handle the case when G1 is
   completely out of regions.

Both approaches will most likely also tie into the idea of rebuilding 
remembered sets concurrently. Any kind of full GC implementation need to 
rebuild all the remembered sets, unless the non-essential remembered 
sets can be rebuilt during concurrent phase. Since after a full GC G1 
will resume doing young collections, the remembered sets can be rebuilt 
later.

Even though a full collection still is a failure mode for G1, having a 
parallel version will make the impact less dramatic if it happens.

Thanks,
Erik