CXL-INTERPLAY: Unraveling and Characterizing CXL Interference in Modern Computer Systems

Compute Express Link (CXL) is a promising technology that addresses memory and storage challenges. Despite its advantages, CXL faces performance threats from external interference when coexisting with current memory and storage systems. This interference is under-explored in existing research. To address this, we develop CXL-Interplay, systematically characterizing and analyzing interference from memory and storage systems. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to characterize CXL interference on real CXL hardware. We also provide reverse-reasoning analysis with performance counters and kernel functions. In the end, we propose and evaluate mitigation solutions.