RAMA: a file system for massively-parallel computers

Abstract

The authors describe a file system design for massively parallel computers which makes very efficient use of a few disks per processor. This overcomes the traditional input/output (I/O) bottleneck of massively parallel machines by storing the data on disks within the high-speed interconnection network. In addition, the file system, called RAMA (Rapid Access to Massive Archive), requires little internode synchronization, removing another common bottleneck in parallel processor file systems. Support for a large tertiary storage system can easily be integrated into the file system; in fact, RAMA runs most efficiently when tertiary storage is used.<>