Summary form only given. We study the performance of remote file system access in a cluster environment. Our experimental lightweight system is called ORFA and aims at providing high performance for general purpose file access. Using a simple protocol allows us to get the best performance from the underlying communication subsystem. Our user-level implementation avoids several kernel constraints and thus provides better performance than NFS. Moreover, we explore several optimization techniques to reduce the server overhead, which usually is the bottleneck. Performance evaluation shows that data access may saturate the network link while the server remains scalable.

High performance applications running on high-speed interconnects require both efficient communication between computing nodes and fast access to the storage system. Making the most of these networks to access remote files requires a good interaction between their highly specific software interface and the special requirements of distributed file systems. We show how non-buffered and buffered remote file access may be improved by modifying the network programming interface and firmware and by adding the required infrastructure in the operating system. Our modifications in Myrinet/GM show no performance penalty while the network usage in our ORFA (optimized remote file access) protocol is improved.

This paper introduces Madeleine II, a new adaptive and portable multi-protocol implementation of the Madeleine communication library. Madeleine II has the ability to control multiple network interfaces (BIP, SISCI, VIA) and multiple network adapters (Ethernet, Myrinet, SCI) within the same application session. Moreover it includes advanced mechanisms to dynamically select the most appropriate transfer method for a given network protocol according to various parameters such as data size or responsiveness user requirements. We report on performance measurements obtained using BIP/Myrinet and SISCI/SCI and we present preliminary results about our Nexus/Madeleine II and MPICH/Madeleine II ports.

Article Free Access Share on BIP-SMP: high performance message passing over a cluster of commodity SMPs Authors: Patrick Geoffray RHDAC, project CNRS-INRIA ReMap, LHPC (Matra Systèmes & Information) ISTIL UCB-Lyon 69622 VILLEURBANNE RHDAC, project CNRS-INRIA ReMap, LHPC (Matra Systèmes & Information) ISTIL UCB-Lyon 69622 VILLEURBANNEView Profile , Loïc Prylli LIP, project CNRS-INRIA ReMap, LHPC (ENS-Lyon), ENS-Lyon, 69634 LYON LIP, project CNRS-INRIA ReMap, LHPC (ENS-Lyon), ENS-Lyon, 69634 LYONView Profile , Bernard Tourancheau RHDAC, project CNRS-INRIA ReMap, LHPC (Matra Systèmes & Information) ISTIL UCB-Lyon 69622 VILLEURBANNE and LIP, project CNRS-INRIA ReMap, LHPC (ENS-Lyon), ENS-Lyon, 69634 LYON RHDAC, project CNRS-INRIA ReMap, LHPC (Matra Systèmes & Information) ISTIL UCB-Lyon 69622 VILLEURBANNE and LIP, project CNRS-INRIA ReMap, LHPC (ENS-Lyon), ENS-Lyon, 69634 LYONView Profile Authors Info & Claims SC '99: Proceedings of the 1999 ACM/IEEE conference on SupercomputingJanuary 1999 Pages 20–eshttps://doi.org/10.1145/331532.331552Published:01 January 1999Publication History 23citation404DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations23Total Downloads404Last 12 Months21Last 6 weeks5 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF