Improving cluster IO performance with remote efficient access to distant device

Several pieces of grand challenge application software in biology or physics process large datasets which are stored on disks. These applications require high performance IO systems. Cluster computing is a good approach to build an IO intensive platform. In this paper we investigate a technique we called READ/sup 2/ which stands for Remote Efficient Access to Distant Device. The aim of this technique is to reduce the stress which is put on the buses of the cluster's node during the execution of IO streaming applications using parallel IO. In READ/sup 2/ any cluster's node directly accesses a remote disk of a distant node: the distant processor and the distant memory are removed from the control and data path. With this technique, a cluster can be considered as a shared disk architecture instead of a shared nothing one, and may inherit works from the SAN community. This paper presents what the architectural benefit of READ/sup 2/ are, i.e. a better use of IO and memory buses which eventually improve the IO scalability of a cluster and the performance of streaming applications.