dibble@cs.rochester.edu (08/19/89)
Contacts: Michael L. Scott scott@cs.rochester.edu
Peter C. Dibble dibble@cs.rochester.edu
Parallel computers with non-parallel file systems find themselves
limited by the performance of the processor running the file
system. We have designed and implemented a parallel file system
called Bridge that eliminates this problem by spreading both data
and file system computation over a large number of processors and
disks. Our design will adapt easily to a wide variety of
multiprocessors and multicomputers; our current implementation runs
on the BBN Butterfly. To assess the effectiveness of Bridge we
have used it as the basis for several standard file-handling
applications, including copying, sorting, searching, and image
transposition. Analysis and empirical measurements suggest that
for applications such as these Bridge can provide nearly linear
speedup on over 100 nodes.