Parallel I/O Workload Characteristics Using Vesta

        ....NOTE: FIGURES NOT INCLUDED IN POSTSCRIPT FILE... In recent years, the design and performance evaluation of parallel processors has focused on the processor, memory and communication subsystems. As a result, these subsystems have better performance potential than the I/O subsystem. In fact, the I/O subsystem is the bottleneck in many machines. However, there are a number of studies currently underway to improve the design of parallel I/O subsystems. To develop optimal parallel I/O subsystem designs, one must have a thorough understanding of the workload characteristics of parallel I/O and its exploitation of the associated parallel file system. Presented are the results of a study conducted to analyze the parallel I/O workloads of several applications on a parallel processor using the Vesta parallel file system. Traces of the applications are obtained to collect system events, communication events, and parallel I/O events. The traces are then analyzed to determine workload characteristics. The results show I/O request rates on the order of hundreds of requests per second, a large majority of requests are for small amount of data (less than 1500 bytes), a few requests are for large amounts of data (on the order of megabytes), significant file sharing among processes within a job, and strong temporal, traditional spatial, and interprocess spatial locality. (ScalParSys)

By: Sandra Johnson Baylor and C. Eric Wu

Published in: RC19940 in 1995

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