IncFS: An Integrated High-Performance Distributed File System Based on NFS

Abstract

Scientific computing applications running in the cluster environment require high performance distributed file system to store and share data. A new approach, the IncFS, of building a high performance distributed file system by integrating many NFS servers is presented in this paper. The IncFS is aimed at providing a simple and convenient way to achieve high aggregate I/O bandwidth for scientific computing applications that require intensive concurrent file access. The IncFS uses a hyper structure to integrate multiple NFS file systems. And it provides multiple data layouts to effectively distribute file data among those NFS servers. Performance evaluations demonstrate that the IncFS has very good data access bandwidth with near perfect scalability, while still maintains an acceptable meta data throughput.