Optimizations Based on Hints in a Parallel File System

摘要

Existing parallel file systems provide applications a little control for optimizing I/O accesses. Most of these systems use optimization techniques transparent to the applications, limiting the performance achieved by these solutions. Furthermore, there is a big gap between the interface provided by parallel file systems and the needs of applications. In fact, most of the parallel file systems do not use intuitive I/O hints or other optimizations approaches. In this sense, applications programmers cannot take advantage of optimization techniques suitable for the application domain. This paper describes I/O optimizations techniques used in MAPFS, a multiagent I/O architecture. These techniques are configured by means of a double interface for specifying access patterns or hints that increase the performance of I/O operations. An example of this interface is shown.