Experimental Analysis of File Transfer Rates over Wide-Area Dedicated Connections

Nageswara S.V. Rao, Qiang Liu, Satyabrata Sen, Greg Hinkel, Neena Imam, Ian Foster, Rajkumar Kettimuthu, Bradley W. Settlemyer, Chase Q. Wu, Daqing Yun

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

File transfers over dedicated connections, supported by large parallel file systems, have become increasingly important in high-performance computing and big data workflows. It remains a challenge to achieve peak rates for such transfers due to the complexities of file I/O, host, and network transport subsystems, and equally importantly, their interactions. We present extensive measurements of disk-to-disk file transfers using Lustre and XFS file systems mounted on multi-core servers over a suite of 10 Gbps emulated connections with 0-366 ms round trip times. Our results indicate that large buffer sizes and many parallel flows do not always guarantee high transfer rates. Furthermore, large variations in the measured rates necessitate repeated measurements to ensure confidence in inferences based on them. We propose a new method to efficiently identify the optimal joint file I/O and network transport parameters using a small number of measurements. We show that for XFS and Lustre with direct I/O, this method identifies configurations achieving 97% of the peak transfer rate while probing only 12% of the parameter space.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - 18th IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications, 14th IEEE International Conference on Smart City and 2nd IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Systems, HPCC/SmartCity/DSS 2016
EditorsLaurence T. Yang, Jinjun Chen
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages198-205
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781509042968
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 20 2017
Event18th IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications, 14th IEEE International Conference on Smart City and 2nd IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Systems, HPCC/SmartCity/DSS 2016 - Sydney, Australia
Duration: Dec 12 2016Dec 14 2016

Publication series

NameProceedings - 18th IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications, 14th IEEE International Conference on Smart City and 2nd IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Systems, HPCC/SmartCity/DSS 2016

Other

Other18th IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications, 14th IEEE International Conference on Smart City and 2nd IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Systems, HPCC/SmartCity/DSS 2016
Country/TerritoryAustralia
CitySydney
Period12/12/1612/14/16

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Computational Theory and Mathematics
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Information Systems

Keywords

  • Dedicated connections
  • File I/O read and write
  • Profiling
  • Profiling overhead
  • RTT
  • TCP
  • Throughput
  • Wide area transport

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