The ANSI Object-based Storage Device (OSD) standard is a major step toward enabling explicit application awareness in storage systems behind a standard, fully interoperable interface [3]. In this paper, we explore a par ticular flavor of application-awareness, that of database ap plications. We describe the design and implementation of a database-aware storage system that uses the OSD inter face not only as a means to access data, but also to per mit explicit communication between the application and the storage system. This communication is significant, as it enables our storage system to transparently optimize data placement and request scheduling. We demonstrate that OSD makes it practical to improve storage performance in these ways without exposing proprietary disk drive param eters to application code, and without labor-intensive, frag ile parameter measurement.
Aravindan Raghuveer, Steven W. Schlosser, Sami Ire