Parallel I/O subsystems in massively parallel supercomputers

Dror G. Feitelson, Peter F. Corbett, Sandra Johnson Baylor, Yarsun Hsu

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

Applications executing on massively parallel processors (MPPs) often require a high aggregate bandwidth of lowlatency I/O to secondary storage. In many current MPPs, this requirement has been met by supplying internal parallel I/O subsystems that serve as staging areas for data. Typically, the parallel I/O subsystem is composed of I/O nodes that are linked to the same interconnection network that connects the compute nodes. The I/O nodes each manage their own set of disks. The option of increasing the number of I/O nodes together with the number of compute nodes and with the interconnection network allows for a balanced architecture. We explore the issues motivating the selection of this architecture for secondary storage in MPPs. We survey the designs of some recent and current parallel I/O subsystems, and discuss issues of system configuration, reliability, and file systems.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHigh Performance Mass Storage and Parallel I/O
Subtitle of host publicationTechnologies and Applications
PublisherWiley-IEEE Press
Pages389-407
Number of pages19
ISBN (Electronic)9780470544839
ISBN (Print)0471208094, 9780471208099
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2001
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2002 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • Data staging
  • Disk striping
  • Hierarchical storage
  • Parallel I/O
  • Parallel file system
  • RAID
  • Scalable performance

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