Abstract
Virtualization using Xen-based virtual machine environment has yet to permeate the field of high performance computing (HPC). One major requirement for HPC is the availability of scalable and high performance I/O. Conventional wisdom suggests that virtualization of system services must lead to degraded performance. In this presentation, we take on a parallel I/O perspective to study the viability of Xen-based HPC for data-intensive programs. We have analyzed the overheads and migration costs for parallel I/O programs in a Xen-based virtual machine cluster. Our analysis covers PVFS-based parallel I/O over two different networking protocols: TCP-based Gigabit Ethernet and VMM-bypass InfiniBand. Our experimental results suggest that network processing in Xen-based virtualization can significantly impact the performance of Parallel I/O. By carefully tuning the networking layers, we have demonstrated the following for Xen-based HPC I/O: (1) TCP offloading can help achieve low overhead parallel I/O; (2) parallel reads and writes require different network tuning to achieve good I/O bandwidth; and (3) Xen-based HPC environment can support high performance parallel I/O with both negligible overhead and little migration cost.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | Proceedings CCGRID 2008 - 8th IEEE International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid |
| Pages | 154-161 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2008 |
| Event | CCGRID 2008 - 8th IEEE International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid - Lyon, France Duration: May 19 2008 → May 22 2008 |
Publication series
| Name | Proceedings CCGRID 2008 - 8th IEEE International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid |
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Conference
| Conference | CCGRID 2008 - 8th IEEE International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid |
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| Country/Territory | France |
| City | Lyon |
| Period | 05/19/08 → 05/22/08 |