Title
Design and Implementation of an Asymmetric Block-Based Parallel File System
Abstract
Existing block-based parallel file systems, which are deployed in the storage area network (SAN), blend metadata with data in underlying disks. Unfortunately, such symmetric architecture is prone to system-level failures, as metadata on shared disks can be damaged by a malfunctioning client. In this paper, we present an asymmetric block-based parallel file system, Redbud, which isolates the metadata storage in the metadata server (MDS) access domain. Although centralized metadata management can effectively improve the reliability of the system, it faces some challenges in providing high performance and availability. Towards this end, we introduce an embedded directory mechanism to explore the disk bandwidth of the metadata storage; we also introduces adaptive layout operations to deliver high I/O throughput for various file access pattern. Besides, by taking the MDS’s load into consideration, we propose an adaptive timeout algorithm to make the MDS failure detection adaptive to the evolving workloads, improving the system availability. Measurements of a wide range of workloads demonstrate the benefit of our design and that Redbud gains good scalability.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1109/TC.2013.6
IEEE Transactions on Computers
Keywords
Field
DocType
metadata server access domain,asymmetric block-based parallel file system,file access pattern,metadata storage,centralized metadata management,storage area network,system availability improvement,embedded directory mechanism,fault tolerant computing,asymmetric,symmetric architecture,system-level failures,disk bandwidth,storage area networks,input-output programs,adaptive layout operations,system reliability improvement,system recovery,high i-o throughput,parallel algorithms,redbud,san,adaptive timeout algorithm,parallel file system,meta data,mds failure detection,availability,layout,servers,indexes,history
Metadata,File system,Self-certifying File System,Computer science,Parallel computing,Computer network,Real-time computing,Journaling file system,Data file,Metadata management,Storage area network,Scalability
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
63
7
0018-9340
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
2
0.35
11
Authors
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Letian Yi1232.76
Jiwu Shu270972.71
Ying Zhao390249.19
Yingjin Qian4111.28
Youyou Lu535630.81
Weimin Zheng61889182.48