lib/{mergeset,storage}: allow at least 3 concurrent flushes during background merges on systems with 1 or 2 CPU cores

This should prevent from data ingestion slowdown and query performance degradation
on systems with small number of CPU cores (1 or 2), when big merge is performed.

This should help https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/3790

Updates https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/3337

docs/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -17,6 +17,8 @@ The following tip changes can be tested by building VictoriaMetrics components f
 
 * SECURITY: upgrade base docker image (alpine) from 3.17.1 to 3.17.2. See [alpine 3.17.2 release notes](https://alpinelinux.org/posts/Alpine-3.17.2-released.html).
 
+* BUGFIX: prevent from possible data ingestion slowdown and query performance slowdown during [background merges of big parts](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#storage) on systems with small number of CPU cores (1 or 2 CPU cores). The issue has been introduced in [v1.85.0](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/CHANGELOG.html#v1850) when implementing [this feature](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/3337). See also [this issue](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/3790).
+
 ## [v1.87.1](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/releases/tag/v1.87.1)
 
 Released at 2023-02-09

lib/mergeset/table.go

@@ -788,7 +788,18 @@ func (tb *Table) notifyBackgroundMergers() bool {
 	}
 }
 
-var flushConcurrencyCh = make(chan struct{}, cgroup.AvailableCPUs())
+var flushConcurrencyLimit = func() int {
+	n := cgroup.AvailableCPUs()
+	if n < 2 {
+		// Allow at least 2 concurrent flushers on systems with a single CPU core
+		// in order to guarantee that in-memory data flushes and background merges can be continued
+		// when a single flusher is busy with the long merge.
+		n = 2
+	}
+	return n
+}()
+
+var flushConcurrencyCh = make(chan struct{}, flushConcurrencyLimit)
 
 func needAssistedMerge(pws []*partWrapper, maxParts int) bool {
 	if len(pws) < maxParts {

lib/storage/partition.go

@@ -615,7 +615,19 @@ func (pt *partition) notifyBackgroundMergers() bool {
 	}
 }
 
-var flushConcurrencyCh = make(chan struct{}, cgroup.AvailableCPUs())
+var flushConcurrencyLimit = func() int {
+	n := cgroup.AvailableCPUs()
+	if n < 3 {
+		// Allow at least 3 concurrent flushers on systems with a single CPU core
+		// in order to guarantee that in-memory data flushes and background merges can be continued
+		// when a single flusher is busy with the long merge of big parts,
+		// while another flusher is busy with the long merge of small parts.
+		n = 3
+	}
+	return n
+}()
+
+var flushConcurrencyCh = make(chan struct{}, flushConcurrencyLimit)
 
 func needAssistedMerge(pws []*partWrapper, maxParts int) bool {
 	if len(pws) < maxParts {
@@ -1007,7 +1019,7 @@ func hasActiveMerges(pws []*partWrapper) bool {
 	return false
 }
 
-var mergeWorkersLimitCh = make(chan struct{}, getDefaultMergeConcurrency(16))
+var mergeWorkersLimitCh = make(chan struct{}, adjustMergeWorkersLimit(getDefaultMergeConcurrency(16)))
 
 var bigMergeWorkersLimitCh = make(chan struct{}, getDefaultMergeConcurrency(4))
 
@@ -1038,9 +1050,20 @@ func SetMergeWorkersCount(n int) {
 		// Do nothing
 		return
 	}
+	n = adjustMergeWorkersLimit(n)
 	mergeWorkersLimitCh = make(chan struct{}, n)
 }
 
+func adjustMergeWorkersLimit(n int) int {
+	if n < 2 {
+		// Allow at least 2 merge workers on systems with a single CPU core
+		// in order to guarantee that background merges can be continued
+		// when a single worker is busy with the long merge of big parts.
+		return 2
+	}
+	return n
+}
+
 func (pt *partition) startMergeWorkers() {
 	// Start a merge worker per available CPU core.
 	// The actual number of concurrent merges is limited inside mergeWorker() below.