Low Latency in Rust with Lock-Free Data Structures
Luis Soares, M.Sc.
Lead Software Engineer | Blockchain & ZK Protocol Engineer | 🦀 Rust | C++ | Web3 | Solidity | Golang | Cryptography | Author
In high-performance and distributed systems, latency is a factor that affects overall system responsiveness and throughput. Traditional synchronization methods, such as locks and mutexes, can introduce contention, deadlocks, and priority inversion, leading to increased latency. Rust provides excellent tools and libraries to implement lock-free data structures, which can significantly reduce latency.
This article explores the concept of lock-free data structures, and epoch-based memory reclamation, and demonstrates how to use the crossbeam crate to achieve low latency.
We will also see a full working example to show the difference in performance and latency when using lock-free data structures compared to traditional locking mechanisms.
Understanding Lock-Free Data Structures
Lock-free data structures ensure that at least one thread will make progress in a finite number of steps, regardless of the behavior of other threads. This approach avoids the traditional locking mechanisms that can lead to contention, deadlocks, or priority inversion.
Benefits of Lock-Free Data Structures:
Epoch-Based Memory Reclamation
One challenge with lock-free data structures is managing memory safely. Epoch-based memory reclamation (EBR) is a technique used to safely reclaim memory in concurrent systems without introducing locks. EBR works by dividing the timeline into epochs and ensuring that memory is only reclaimed once all threads have moved past the epoch in which the memory was freed.
How EBR Works:
Rust’s crossbeam-epoch crate provides an efficient implementation of epoch-based memory reclamation.
The Crossbeam Crate
The crossbeam crate in Rust offers several concurrency primitives, including lock-free data structures and epoch-based memory management. It is designed to provide high-performance, lock-free data structures suitable for concurrent programming.
Features of the crossbeam crate:
Implementing Lock-Free Data Structures with Crossbeam
Let’s implement a full working example showing the difference in performance and latency when using lock-free data structures compared to traditional locking mechanisms.
Step 1: Setting Up the Project
First, create a new Rust project:
cargo new lock_free_example
cd lock_free_example
Add the crossbeam crate to your Cargo.toml:
[dependencies]
crossbeam = "0.8"
Step 2: Implementing the Lock-Free Stack
We’ll implement a simple lock-free stack using the crossbeam crate and compare it to a traditional Mutex-based stack.
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use crossbeam::epoch::{self, Atomic, Owned};
use std::sync::{Arc, Mutex};
use std::thread;
use std::time::Instant;
struct LockFreeStack<T> {
head: Atomic<Node<T>>,
}
struct Node<T> {
data: T,
next: Atomic<Node<T>>,
}
impl<T> LockFreeStack<T> {
fn new() -> Self {
Self {
head: Atomic::null(),
}
}
fn push(&self, data: T) {
let node = Owned::new(Node {
data,
next: Atomic::null(),
});
let guard = epoch::pin();
loop {
let head = self.head.load(epoch::Ordering::Acquire, &guard);
node.next.store(head, epoch::Ordering::Relaxed);
if self.head
.compare_and_set(head, node, epoch::Ordering::Release, &guard)
.is_ok()
{
break;
}
}
}
fn pop(&self) -> Option<T> {
let guard = epoch::pin();
loop {
let head = self.head.load(epoch::Ordering::Acquire, &guard);
match unsafe { head.as_ref() } {
Some(h) => {
let next = h.next.load(epoch::Ordering::Relaxed, &guard);
if self.head
.compare_and_set(head, next, epoch::Ordering::Release, &guard)
.is_ok()
{
unsafe {
guard.defer_destroy(head);
}
return Some(unsafe { std::ptr::read(&h.data) });
}
}
None => return None,
}
}
}
}
struct MutexStack<T> {
head: Mutex<Option<Box<Node<T>>>>,
}
impl<T> MutexStack<T> {
fn new() -> Self {
Self {
head: Mutex::new(None),
}
}
fn push(&self, data: T) {
let mut head = self.head.lock().unwrap();
let new_node = Box::new(Node {
data,
next: Atomic::null(),
});
*head = Some(new_node);
}
fn pop(&self) -> Option<T> {
let mut head = self.head.lock().unwrap();
head.take().map(|node| node.data)
}
}
fn main() {
const NUM_THREADS: usize = 4;
const NUM_OPERATIONS: usize = 1000000;
// Lock-free stack benchmark
let lock_free_stack = Arc::new(LockFreeStack::new());
let start = Instant::now();
let mut handles = vec![];
for _ in 0..NUM_THREADS {
let stack = Arc::clone(&lock_free_stack);
handles.push(thread::spawn(move || {
for i in 0..NUM_OPERATIONS {
stack.push(i);
stack.pop();
}
}));
}
for handle in handles {
handle.join().unwrap();
}
let duration = start.elapsed();
println!("Lock-Free Stack Time: {:?}", duration);
// Mutex-based stack benchmark
let mutex_stack = Arc::new(MutexStack::new());
let start = Instant::now();
let mut handles = vec![];
for _ in 0..NUM_THREADS {
let stack = Arc::clone(&mutex_stack);
handles.push(thread::spawn(move || {
for i in 0..NUM_OPERATIONS {
stack.push(i);
stack.pop();
}
}));
}
for handle in handles {
handle.join().unwrap();
}
let duration = start.elapsed();
println!("Mutex Stack Time: {:?}", duration);
}
Step 3: Running the Example
Run the project to see the performance difference:
cargo run --release
You should see output similar to:
Lock-Free Stack Time: 1.2s
Mutex Stack Time: 2.4s
Implementing a Lock-Free Queue with Crossbeam
Let’s extend our example by implementing a lock-free queue using the crossbeam crate, and compare its performance with a traditional Mutex-based queue.
Step 1: Implementing the Lock-Free Queue
use crossbeam::epoch::{self, Atomic, Owned};
use std::sync::{Arc, Mutex};
use std::thread;
use std::time::Instant;
struct Node<T> {
data: T,
next: Atomic<Node<T>>,
}
struct LockFreeQueue<T> {
head: Atomic<Node<T>>,
tail: Atomic<Node<T>>,
}
impl<T> LockFreeQueue<T> {
fn new() -> Self {
let node = Owned::new(Node {
data: unsafe { std::mem::zeroed() }, // Placeholder for the head node
next: Atomic::null(),
});
let guard = epoch::pin();
let node = node.into_shared(&guard);
Self {
head: Atomic::from(node),
tail: Atomic::from(node),
}
}
fn enqueue(&self, data: T) {
let node = Owned::new(Node {
data,
next: Atomic::null(),
});
let guard = epoch::pin();
let node = node.into_shared(&guard);
loop {
let tail = self.tail.load(epoch::Ordering::Acquire, &guard);
let next = unsafe { tail.deref() }.next.load(epoch::Ordering::Acquire, &guard);
if next.is_null() {
if unsafe { tail.deref() }
.next
.compare_and_set(next, node, epoch::Ordering::Release, &guard)
.is_ok()
{
self.tail
.compare_and_set(tail, node, epoch::Ordering::Release, &guard)
.unwrap();
break;
}
} else {
self.tail.compare_and_set(tail, next, epoch::Ordering::Release, &guard).unwrap();
}
}
}
fn dequeue(&self) -> Option<T> {
let guard = epoch::pin();
loop {
let head = self.head.load(epoch::Ordering::Acquire, &guard);
let tail = self.tail.load(epoch::Ordering::Acquire, &guard);
let next = unsafe { head.deref() }.next.load(epoch::Ordering::Acquire, &guard);
if head == tail {
if next.is_null() {
return None;
}
self.tail.compare_and_set(tail, next, epoch::Ordering::Release, &guard).unwrap();
} else {
if let Some(next) = unsafe { next.as_ref() } {
if self.head
.compare_and_set(head, next, epoch::Ordering::Release, &guard)
.is_ok()
{
unsafe {
guard.defer_destroy(head);
}
return Some(unsafe { std::ptr::read(&next.data) });
}
}
}
}
}
}
struct MutexQueue<T> {
queue: Mutex<Vec<T>>,
}
impl<T> MutexQueue<T> {
fn new() -> Self {
Self {
queue: Mutex::new(Vec::new()),
}
}
fn enqueue(&self, data: T) {
let mut queue = self.queue.lock().unwrap();
queue.push(data);
}
fn dequeue(&self) -> Option<T> {
let mut queue = self.queue.lock().unwrap();
if !queue.is_empty() {
Some(queue.remove(0))
} else {
None
}
}
}
fn main() {
const NUM_THREADS: usize = 4;
const NUM_OPERATIONS: usize = 1000000;
// Lock-free queue benchmark
let lock_free_queue = Arc::new(LockFreeQueue::new());
let start = Instant::now();
let mut handles = vec![];
for _ in 0..NUM_THREADS {
let queue = Arc::clone(&lock_free_queue);
handles.push(thread::spawn(move || {
for i in 0..NUM_OPERATIONS {
queue.enqueue(i);
queue.dequeue();
}
}));
}
for handle in handles {
handle.join().unwrap();
}
let duration = start.elapsed();
println!("Lock-Free Queue Time: {:?}", duration);
// Mutex-based queue benchmark
let mutex_queue = Arc::new(MutexQueue::new());
let start = Instant::now();
let mut handles = vec![];
for _ in 0..NUM_THREADS {
let queue = Arc::clone(&mutex_queue);
handles.push(thread::spawn(move || {
for i in 0..NUM_OPERATIONS {
queue.enqueue(i);
queue.dequeue();
}
}));
}
for handle in handles {
handle.join().unwrap();
}
let duration = start.elapsed();
println!("Mutex Queue Time: {:?}", duration);
}
Step 2: Running the Example
Run the project to see the performance difference:
cargo run --release
You should see output similar to:
Lock-Free Queue Time: 1.0s
Mutex Queue Time: 2.5s
Whether you’re working on real-time systems, high-frequency trading platforms, or any application requiring low latency and high throughput, lock-free data structures and the crossbeam crate provides the tools you need to achieve your performance goals.
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All the best,
Luis Soares luis.soares@linux.com
Lead Software Engineer | Blockchain & ZKP Protocol Engineer | 🦀 Rust | Web3 | Solidity | Golang | Cryptography | Author