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Applications executing on massively parallel supercomputers require a high aggregate bandwidth of I/O with low latency. This requirement cannot be satisfied by an external file server. Once solution is to employ an internal parallel I/O subsystem, in which I/O nodes with DASD are linked wo the same interconnection network that connects the compute nodes. The option of increasing the number of I/O nodes together with the number of compute nodes allows for a balanced architecture. Indeed, most multicomputer vendors provide internal parallel I/O subsystems as part of their product offerings. However, these systems typically attempt to preserve a Unix-compatible interface, hiding or abstracting the parallelism. New interfaces may be required to fully utilize the capabilities of Parallel I/O. (ScalParSys)
By: D. G. Feitelson, P. F. Corbett, S. J. Baylor and Y. Hsu
Published in: IEEE Parallel and Distributed Technology, volume 3, (no 3), pages 33-49 in 1995
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