Does 'tuned' need to keep running?

On my CentOS 7 systems, I use tuned-adm to set a profile appropriate to the environment during configuration, but after that, I never subsequently change that profile. It seems that the tuned system spawns a process (/usr/bin/python -Es /usr/sbin/tuned -l -P) for dynamic monitoring and adjustment. This process uses noticeably more memory compared to other daemons on my system. I would like to reduce nonessential services on a certain memory-constrained server. If I do not use a profile that involves dynamically adjusting parameters such as power consumption, does the tuned process need to keep running? Can I safely stop the process and have the profile that I originally set up persist from that point on?

Solution 1:

Tuned sets the performance optimizations at boot time. If you disable the process and reboot your server, optimizations would be lost.

You can; however, stop the process after boot and keep whatever settings tuned created at boot time. At least, this is what my testing showed.

Solution 2:

As of CentOS 7.2 tuned now has a no-daemon mode which can be turned on by setting daemon = 0 in /etc/tuned/tuned-main.conf. This is mentioned in the RedHat Performance Tuning Guide.