Recent gains in communication speeds motivate the design of network storage systems whose performance tracks the rapid advances in network technology rather than the slower rate of advances in disk technology. Viewing the network as the primary access path to I/O is an attractive approach to building incrementally scalable, cost-effective, and easy-to-administer storage systems that move data at network speeds.
This paper gives an overview of research on high-speed network storage
in the Trapeze project. Our work is directed primarily at delivering
gigabit-per-second performance for network storage access, using
custom firmware for Myrinet networks, a lightweight
messaging system optimized for block I/O traffic, and a new kernel
storage layer incorporating network memory and parallel
disks. Our current prototype is capable of client file access bandwidths approaching
100 MB/s, with network memory fetch latencies below 150
s for
8KB blocks.