Techniques for modeling large-scale HPC I/O workloads

Accurate analysis of HPC storage system designs is contingent on the use of I/O workloads that are truly representative of expected use. However, I/O analyses are generally bound to specific workload modeling techniques such as synthetic benchmarks or trace replay mechanisms, despite the fact that no single workload modeling technique is appropriate for all use cases. In this work, we present the design of IOWA, a novel I/O workload abstraction that allows arbitrary workload consumer components to obtain I/O workloads from a range of diverse input sources. Thus, researchers can choose specific I/O workload generators based on the resources they have available and the type of evaluation they wish to perform. As part of this research, we also outline the design of three distinct workload generation methods, based on I/O traces, synthetic I/O kernels, and I/O characterizations. We analyze and contrast each of these workload generation techniques in the context of storage system simulat...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2015
• Where: SC
• Authors: Shane Snyder, Philip H. Carns, Robert Latham, Misbah Mubarak, Robert B. Ross, Christopher D. Carothers, Babak Behzad, Huong Vu Thanh Luu, Surendra Byna, Prabhat
• Keywords: Applied Computing, SC 2015