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Publication

Modular HPC I/O characterization with Darshan

Authors

Snyder, Shane; Carns, Philip; Harms, Kevin; Ross, Robert; Lockwood, Glenn; Wright, Nicholas

Abstract

Contemporary high-performance computing (HPC) applications encompass a broad range of distinct I/O strategies and are often executed on a number of different compute platforms in their lifetime. These large-scale HPC platforms employ increasingly complex I/O subsystems to provide a suitable level of I/O performance to applications. Tuning I/O workloads for such a system is nontrivial, and the results generally are not portable to other HPC systems. I/O profiling tools can help to address this challenge, but most existing tools only instrument specific components within the I/O subsystem that provide a limited perspective on I/O performance. The increasing diversity of scientific applications and computing platforms calls for greater flexibililty and scope in I/O characterization.