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@heading(Proposal for a Common Parallel File System)
@heading(CMU-CS-96-193)
@center(@b(Peter Corbett@foot<IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, PO Box 218, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598.>, Jean-Pierre Prost@foot<IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, PO Box 218, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598.>, Chris Demetriou, Garth Gibson,
Erik Riedel, Jim Zelenka, Yuqun Chen@foot<Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544.>, Ed Felten@foot<Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544.>, Kai Li@foot<Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544.>, John Hartman@foot<Department of Computer Science, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ  85721.>, Larry Peterson@foot<Department of Computer Science, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ  85721.>, 
Brian Bershad@foot<Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA  98195.>, Alex Wolman@foot<Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA  98195.>, Ruth Aydt@foot<Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801.>))
@center(October 1996@foot<Also appears as Technical Report CACR-130, Scalable
I/O Initiative, Caltech Center for Advanced Computing Research, November 1996.>)
@center(FTP: CMU-CS-96-193.ps)
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@begin(text,spacing=1)

This document proposes an interface to parallel file systems intended for
use with a variety of parallel computers.  This proposal is based on the
separation of programmer convenience functions from high-performance enabling
functions.  We propose that the former be supported above this interface,
possibly in client libraries.  The latter, functions that enable high
performance, are defined by this proposed API under the assumption that these
functions are more likely to need system and vendor-specific support.

Specifically, this proposal includes functions which support reading and
writing with scatter-gather addressing for memory and file ranges, and
asynchronous operations.  It also includes mechanisms that permit client
control over client caching, and file access and layout hints.  Finally,
it includes a mechanism by which this API can be extended and extensions
for fast file copy and batching collective I/O operations.

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@b(Keywords:@ )@c<Parallel file systems, low-level interface, scalable
input/output, high-performance computing>
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@end(text)
@flushright(@b[(132 pages)])