Improving I/O performance using virtual disk introspection

Vasily Tarasov; Deepak Jain; Dean Hildebrand; Renu Tewari; Geoff Kuenning; Erez Zadok

Improving I/O performance using virtual disk introspection

Vasily Tarasov
, Deepak Jain
, Dean Hildebrand
, Renu Tewari
, Geoff Kuenning
, Erez Zadok

Computer Science

Stony Brook University
IBM
Harvey Mudd College

Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › peer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

Storage consolidation due to server virtualization puts stringent new requirements on Storage Array (SA) performance. Virtualized workloads require new performance optimizations that cannot be totally addressed by merely using expensive hardware such as SSDs. This position paper presents Virtual Machine Disk Image (VMDI) introspection—a key technique for implementing a variety of virtualization-oriented I/O optimizations. VMDI introspection gives SAs an understanding of guest file system semantics, such as determining object types and classifying read and write operations. We explore possible approaches for VMDI introspection and then describe a set of VMDI-introspection-based optimizations. Our prototype implementation with enhanced meta-data caching and placement shows 11% to 20× performance improvement.

Original language	English
State	Published - 2013
Event	5th USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Storage and File Systems, HotStorage 2013 - San Jose, United States Duration: Jun 27 2013 → Jun 28 2013

Conference

Conference	5th USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Storage and File Systems, HotStorage 2013
Country/Territory	United States
City	San Jose
Period	06/27/13 → 06/28/13

Cite this

@conference{f0de184e8e394303b006e75ca786688d,

title = "Improving I/O performance using virtual disk introspection",

abstract = "Storage consolidation due to server virtualization puts stringent new requirements on Storage Array (SA) performance. Virtualized workloads require new performance optimizations that cannot be totally addressed by merely using expensive hardware such as SSDs. This position paper presents Virtual Machine Disk Image (VMDI) introspection—a key technique for implementing a variety of virtualization-oriented I/O optimizations. VMDI introspection gives SAs an understanding of guest file system semantics, such as determining object types and classifying read and write operations. We explore possible approaches for VMDI introspection and then describe a set of VMDI-introspection-based optimizations. Our prototype implementation with enhanced meta-data caching and placement shows 11\% to 20× performance improvement.",

author = "Vasily Tarasov and Deepak Jain and Dean Hildebrand and Renu Tewari and Geoff Kuenning and Erez Zadok",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2013 USENIX Association. All rights reserved.; 5th USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Storage and File Systems, HotStorage 2013 ; Conference date: 27-06-2013 Through 28-06-2013",

year = "2013",

language = "English",

}

TY - CONF

T1 - Improving I/O performance using virtual disk introspection

AU - Tarasov, Vasily

AU - Jain, Deepak

AU - Hildebrand, Dean

AU - Tewari, Renu

AU - Kuenning, Geoff

AU - Zadok, Erez

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - Storage consolidation due to server virtualization puts stringent new requirements on Storage Array (SA) performance. Virtualized workloads require new performance optimizations that cannot be totally addressed by merely using expensive hardware such as SSDs. This position paper presents Virtual Machine Disk Image (VMDI) introspection—a key technique for implementing a variety of virtualization-oriented I/O optimizations. VMDI introspection gives SAs an understanding of guest file system semantics, such as determining object types and classifying read and write operations. We explore possible approaches for VMDI introspection and then describe a set of VMDI-introspection-based optimizations. Our prototype implementation with enhanced meta-data caching and placement shows 11% to 20× performance improvement.

AB - Storage consolidation due to server virtualization puts stringent new requirements on Storage Array (SA) performance. Virtualized workloads require new performance optimizations that cannot be totally addressed by merely using expensive hardware such as SSDs. This position paper presents Virtual Machine Disk Image (VMDI) introspection—a key technique for implementing a variety of virtualization-oriented I/O optimizations. VMDI introspection gives SAs an understanding of guest file system semantics, such as determining object types and classifying read and write operations. We explore possible approaches for VMDI introspection and then describe a set of VMDI-introspection-based optimizations. Our prototype implementation with enhanced meta-data caching and placement shows 11% to 20× performance improvement.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85084160014

M3 - Paper

AN - SCOPUS:85084160014

T2 - 5th USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Storage and File Systems, HotStorage 2013

Y2 - 27 June 2013 through 28 June 2013

ER -

Improving I/O performance using virtual disk introspection

Abstract

Conference

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this