Area I/O's potential for future processor systems

Bandwidth, latency, system speed, and, of course, the size of future microprocessor systems all highly depend on interconnection technologies. Interconnection will become the key performance bottleneck as semiconductor technology improvements continue to reduce feature size. In this article, we describe the use of on-chip area I/O for future microprocessor systems on the basis of a case study we made of an Intel Pentium system. Area I/O is simply a method of locating I/Os over the entire chip instead of just the periphery. We show that system designers can achieve significant performance gains with area I/O and size reductions at both the system and chip levels. We also explain how area I/O in conjunction with high-density interconnects leads to a new package and chip partitioning concept     

A Hint Frequency Based Approach to Enhancing the I/O Performance of Multilevel Cache Storage Systems

With the enormous and increasing user demand, I/O performance is one of the primary considerations to build a data center. Several new technologies in data centers, such as tiered storage, prompt the widespread usage of multilevel cache techniques. In these storage systems, the upper level storage typically serves as a cache for the lower level, which forms a distributed multilevel cache system. However, although many excellent multilevel cache algorithms have been proposed to improve the I/O performance, they still have potential to be enhanced by investigating the history information of hints. To address this challenge, in this paper, we propose a novel hint frequency based approach (HFA), to improve the overall multilevel cache performance of storage systems. The main idea of HFA is using hint frequencies (the total number of demotions/promotions by employing demote/promote hints) to efficiently explore the valuable history information of data blocks among multiple levels. HFA can be applied with several popular multilevel cache algorithms, such as Demote, Promote and Hint-K. Simulation results show that, compared with original multilevel cache algorithms such as Demote, Promote and Hint-K, HFA can improve the I/O performance by up to 20% under different I/O workloads.     

一种新型高效共享的并行I/O系统

如何有效地解决I／O瓶颈问题，一直是高性能并行计算机有待解决的关键技术。该文提出了一种高效共享的并行I／O系统——HPPIO，该系统基于CC-NUMA并行系统结构，采用了一系列高效共享、并行I／O技术。该文对其分布与集中相结合的高效共享并行I／O系统结构、基于PCI Express的高性能I／O控制器设计等进行了介绍。     

基于全局地址空间的高效I/O虚拟化方法研究

针对多操作系统核心下网络I/O资源的高效共享问题,提出的基于全局地址空间的I/O虚拟化方法.方法采用了半虚拟化的设计思想,基于全局地址空间支持,主、从核心在通信的关键路径上均可对网络设备直接发起I/O操作,从而获得最佳的I/O虚拟化性能.本文以HPP结构为实例,研究了将提出的I/O虚拟化方法应用到HPP结构下对InfiniBand网络进行虚拟化的关键技术,实现了从核心I/O通信时的OS旁路和主核心旁路.对曙光6000原型系统的测试表明,在主、从核心配置相同的情况下,从核心使用虚拟化InfiniBand的通信性能与主核心相当,I/O虚拟化对应用性能的影响小于2％.     

Compatible byte-addressable direct I/O for peripheral memory devices in Linux

Memory devices can be used as storage systems to provide a lower latency that can be achieved by disk and flash storage. However, traditional buffered input/output (I/O) and direct I/O are not optimized for memory-based storages. Traditional buffered I/O includes a redundant memory copy with a disk cache. Traditional direct I/O does not support byte addressing. Memory-mapped direct I/O, which optimizes file operations for byte-addressable persistent memory and appears to the CPU as a main memory. However, it has an interface that is not always compatible with existing applications. In addition, it cannot be used for peripheral memory devices (e.g., networked memory devices and hardware RAM drives) that are not interfaced with the memory bus. This paper presents a new Linux I/O layer, byte direct I/O (BDIO), that can process byte-addressable direct I/O using the standard application programming interface. It requires no modification of existing application programs and can be used not only for the memory but also for the peripheral memory devices that are not addressable by a memory management unit. The proposed BDIO layer allows file systems and device drivers to easily support BDIO. The new I/O achieved 18% to 102% performance improvements in the evaluation experiments conducted with online transaction processing, file server, and desktop virtualization storage.     

I/O互联技术及体系结构的研究与发展

I／O互联技术及体系结陶正在发生重大变革,相继涌现了一系列新兴高性能I／O互联技术,包括PCIExpress、RapidIO、HyperTransport以及InfiniBand。该文对它们分别予以研究介绍,针对各自的体系结构、技术特性和应用领域,分别提出了一种合理的系统结构方案。并对这几种I／O互联技术的主要技术特性进行了简要而全面的比较,分析了I／O互联技术及体系结构的现状与发展趋势。     

Issues in storage and retrieval of multimedia data

As the proliferation of multimedia systems continues in diverse application areas, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the performance of the I/O subsystem is a critical limiting factor in the usefulness of such systems. This has spurred extensive research to discover and design efficient and robust I/O systems for the storage and retrieval of multimedia data. To mitigate the effects of the I/O bottleneck in multimedia application environments, we must employ novel technologies and efficient algorithms, and we must use available resources carefully. This paper identifies some significant issues involved and presents a survey of the techniques developed or proposed during recent years to make multimedia I/O more efficient. e-mail: ashfaq@eecis.udel.edu     

An adaptive cache coherence protocol specification for parallel input/output systems

Caching has been intensively used in memory and traditional file systems to improve system performance. However, the use of caching in parallel file systems and I/O libraries has been limited to I/O nodes to avoid cache coherence problems. We specify an adaptive cache coherence protocol that is very suitable for parallel file systems and parallel I/O libraries. This model exploits the use of caching, both at processing and I/O nodes, providing performance improvement mechanisms such as aggressive prefetching and delayed-write techniques. The cache coherence problem is solved by using a dynamic scheme of cache coherence protocols with different sizes and shapes of granularity. The proposed model is very appropriate for parallel I/O interfaces, such as MPI-IO. Performance results, obtained on an IBM SP2, are presented to demonstrate the advantages offered by the cache management methods proposed.     

基于磁盘存取受限的视频流组播策略

在宽带环境下，系统的网络通信能力很强，为了提高视频点播的并发点播数和实时响应性能，需要解决视频服务器端磁盘存取速度的瓶颈效应，文章提出的视频组播策略采用了自适应缓存算法，它在综合考虑网络通信能力和磁盘存取速度的基础上，优化了系统的整体性能，提高了传统视频点播批处理算法的效率。     

A performance analysis of personal computers in a video conferencing environment

New intelligent adapters, advanced bus architectures, and powerful microprocessors have resulted in a new generation of personal computers with true multimedia capabilities. Collaborative applications are the most demanding applications of multimedia technologies today. We present a performance analysis of how effective video conferencing applications can be supported with personal computers connected through a local area network (LAN). We also evaluate the performance impact of an advanced, peer-to-peer I/O protocol. The key factor in the performance of a video conferencing system over a LAN is the video compression and decompression algorithms. At high video frame rates, the peer-to-peer I/O protocol performs better than the traditional, bus-master, interrupt-driven I/O protocol.     

LAN and I/O convergence: a survey of the issues

Local area networks and computer I/O are both interconnects that move information from one location to another. Despite this shared purpose, LANs have traditionally connected independent and widely separated computers. In contrast, computer I/O has traditionally connected a host to peripheral devices such as terminals, disks, and tape drives. Because these connection tasks were different, the architectures developed for one task were not suitable for the other. Consequently, the technologies used to implement one architecture could not address the issues faced by the other, and the technologies were seen as fundamentally different. However, an examination of the architectural requirements of modern I/O and LANs shows that the differences between the two technologies are now disappearing. We believe that LAN and I/O architectures are in fact converging, and that this convergence reflects significant changes in how and where computing resources are used. To illustrate this convergence and its implications, this article examines several modern LANs and channels     

一种基于请求大小的固态盘I／O调度算法

对于同类型的I／O请求,基于闪存固态盘的请求响应时间与请求大小基本呈线性比例关系,并且固态盘的读写性能具有非对称性。针对该特性,提出一种基于请求大小的固态盘I／O调度（SIOS）算法,从I／O请求平均响应时间的角度提高固态盘设备的I／O性能。根据读写性能的非对称性,对读写请求进行分组并且优先处理读请求。在此基础上首先处理等待队列中的小请求,从而减少队列中请求的平均等待时间。采用SLC和MLC2种类型的固态盘进行实验,在5种测试负载的驱动下与Linux系统中的3种调度算法进行比较,对于SLC固态盘,SIOS平均响应时间分别减少18．4％、25．8％、14．9％、14．5％和13．1％,而对于MLC固态盘,平均响应时间分别减少16．9％、24．4％、13．1％、13．0％和13．7％,结果表明,SIOS能有效减少I／O请求的平均响应时间,提高固态盘存储系统的I／O性能。     

Windows Vista存储管理新技术研究

微软在Vista中采用了较多的存储管理新技术。使用SuperFetch、ReadyBoost、ReadyDrive三大存储管理新技术加速系统,提升系统性能。设计磁盘I/O优先级策略,区别对待磁盘I/O请求,提高系统响应能力,克服磁盘I/O瓶颈。利用BitLocker磁盘驱动器加密技术,配合改良的加密文件系统EFS,满足磁盘数据存储的安全性需求。Vista采用了许多类似的新技术,而且大多数技术在Windows7中得到了继承和发展,研究Vista具有十分重要的意义。     

Sloth：一种新的适于缓存服务器的应用层文件系统

针对传统的文件系统(如UFS等)在支持缓存服务器时存在着元数据一致性维护、同步写操作、内存拷贝和多缓存诸多固有的缺陷，我们设计和实现了一种新的、高效的、可移植性好的文件系统Sloth。该系统在应用层实现，采用异步写操作和聚集文件等技术。仿真实验表明，Sloth文件系统有效地提高了读写磁盘的性能，大大减少了访问磁盘的次
数。     

Heuristics for scheduling I/O operations

The I/O bottleneck in parallel computer systems has recently begun receiving increasing interest. Most attention has focused on improving the performance of I/O devices using fairly low level parallelism in techniques such as disk striping and interleaving. Widely applicable solutions, however, will require an integrated approach which addresses the problem at multiple system levels, including applications, systems software, and architecture. We propose that within the context of such an integrated approach, scheduling parallel I/O operations will become increasingly attractive and can potentially provide substantial performance benefits. We describe a simple I/O scheduling problem and present approximate algorithms for its solution. The costs of using these algorithms in terms of execution time, and the benefits in terms of reduced time to complete a batch of I/O operations, are compared with the situations in which no scheduling is used, and in which an optimal scheduling algorithm is used. The comparison is performed both theoretically and experimentally. We have found that, in exchange for a small execution time overhead, the approximate scheduling algorithms can provide substantial improvements in I/O completion times     

VODStar视频点播系统的设计、实现及性能测试

以技术报告的形式阐述了一种采用新的信道调度方案的视频点播系统——VODStar系统——的设计、实现及性能测试．该系统综合应用了CM(controlled multicast)与EEB(extended exponential broadcasting)两种新的信道调度方案，采用以信道调度为中心的控制器和以处理媒体数据为中心的“数据泵”相结合的系统结构，基于IP网络实现了RTSP，RTP和SDP等协议．性能测试结果表明，VODStar系统可以有效地缓解传统VOD系统中的服务器I／O或网络带宽的瓶颈问题，是一种性能较高的VOD系统．     

Enabling dynamic file I/O path selection at runtime for parallel file system

Parallel file systems are experiencing more and more applications from various fields. Various applications have different I/O workload characteristics, which have diverse requirements on accessing storage resources. However, parallel file systems often adopt the “one-size-fits-all” solution, which fails to meet specific application needs and hinders the full exploitation of potential performance. This paper presents a framework to enable dynamic file I/O path selection with fine granularity at runtime. The framework adopts a file handle-rich scheme to allow file systems choose corresponding optimizations to serve I/O requests. Consistency control algorithms are proposed to ensure data consistency while changing optimizations at runtime. One case study on our prototype shows that choosing proper optimizations can improve the I/O performance for small files and large files by up to 40 and 64.4 %, respectively. Another case study shows that the data prefetch performance for real-world application traces can be improved by up to 193 % by selecting correct prefetch patterns. Simulations in large-scale environment also show that our method is scalable and both the memory consumption and the consistency control overhead can be negligible.     

A generic interface for parallel access to large data sets from HPF applications

A critical performance issue for a number of scientific and engineering applications is the efficient transfer of data to secondary storage. Languages such as High Performance Fortran (HPF) have been introduced to allow programming distributed-memory systems at a relatively high level of abstraction. However, the present version of HPF does not provide appropriate constructs for controlling the parallel I/O capabilities of these systems. In this paper, constructs to specify parallel I/O operations on multidimensional arrays in the context of HPF are proposed. The paper also presents implementation concepts that are based on the HPF compiler VFC and the parallel I/O run-time system Panda. Experimental performance results are discussed in the context of financial management and traffic simulation applications.     

The impact of spatial layout of jobs on I/O hotspots in mesh networks

Network contention hotspots can limit network throughput for parallel disk I/O, even when the interconnection network appears to be sufficiently provisioned. We studied I/O hotspots in mesh networks as a function of the spatial layout of an application's compute nodes relative to the I/O nodes.Our analytical modeling and dynamic simulations show that when I/O nodes are configured on one side of a two-dimensional mesh, realizable I/O throughput is at best bounded by four times the network bandwidth per link. Maximal performance depends on the spatial layout of jobs, and cannot be further improved by adding I/O nodes.Applying these results, we devised a new parallel layout allocation strategy (PLAS) which minimizes I/O hotspots, and approaches the theoretical best case for parallel I/O throughput. Our I/O performance analysis and processor allocation strategy are applicable to a wide range of contemporary and emerging high-performance computing systems.     

集成I/O硬件压缩加速器的Hadoop系统结构

随着大数据的发展,Hadoop系统成为了大数据处理中的重要工具之一。在实际应用中,Hadoop的I/O操作制约系统性能的提升。通常Hadoop系统通过软件压缩数据来减少I/O操作,但是软件压缩速度较慢,因此使用硬件压缩加速器来替换软件压缩。Hadoop运行在Java虚拟机上,无法直接调用底层I/O硬件压缩加速器。通过实现Hadoop压缩器/解压缩器类和设计C++动态链接库来解决从Hadoop系统中获得压缩数据和将数据流向I/O硬件压缩加速器两个关键技术,从而将I/O硬件压缩加速器集成到Hadoop系统框架。实验结果表明,I/O硬件压缩加速器的每赫兹压缩速度为15.9Byte/s/Hz,集成I/O硬件压缩加速器提升Hadoop系统性能2倍。