Revolutionize Storage for HPC, Big Data, and AI Workloads with DAOS
Table of Contents:
- Introduction
- The Day Ass Filesystem: A Brief Overview
- Development Timeline of The Day Ass Filesystem
- Objectives of The Day Ass Filesystem Project
- Architecture of The Day Ass Filesystem
- Comparison of The Day Ass Filesystem with Parallel File Systems
- Use Cases and Workloads for The Day Ass Filesystem
- Data Management Model and API of The Day Ass Filesystem
- Integration with HPC Frameworks and Middleware
- Scalability and Performance of The Day Ass Filesystem
- Community Involvement and Future Roadmap
Introduction
Welcome to The Rich Report Podcast, where we provide news and information on high-performance computing. In today's episode, our guest is Johann Lombardi, a principal engineer at Intel. Johann joins us to discuss the Day Ass Filesystem, an innovative storage solution developed by Intel. We will delve into the details of this filesystem, its objectives, architecture, and integration with various HPC frameworks and middleware. So, without further ado, let's get started!
The Day Ass Filesystem: A Brief Overview
The Day Ass Filesystem, also known as DAFS, is a groundbreaking software-defined storage solution developed by Intel. It was initiated in 2012 and has been in development for over six years. The primary objective of the DAFS project was to create a highly efficient and low-latency storage system that could support persistent memory and non-volatile memory storage. The development team realized the need for new semantics and performance optimizations to enable seamless integration with HPC, big data, and AI workloads.
Development Timeline of The Day Ass Filesystem
The DAFS project began in 2012 with the aim of introducing new semantics on top of the existing Lustre filesystem to support persistent memory and non-volatile memory storage. However, as development progressed, the team encountered performance issues related to the way these devices were being driven. This led to a major decision in 2015 to rewrite the filesystem from scratch as a standalone object store. The new design eliminated dependency on Lustre and focused on leveraging persistent memory and NVMe SSDs for optimal performance.
Objectives of The Day Ass Filesystem Project
The main objective of the Day Ass Filesystem project was to create a software-defined storage solution specifically tailored for HPC, big data, and AI workloads. The key goals were to provide low-latency and high-bandwidth storage, support a wide range of storage workloads on a single storage platform, and advance the semantics of data access and management in HPC and big data frameworks.
Architecture of The Day Ass Filesystem
The architecture of the Day Ass Filesystem is based on a distributed asynchronous object storage model. It consists of three main building blocks: persistent memory, NVMe SSDs, and a high-bandwidth Fabric interface. Persistent memory, utilizing Intel's persistent memory development toolkit, is used for metadata and latency-sensitive operations. NVMe SSDs provide high-capacity storage and are accessed via Intel's physical storage performance development kit (SPDK). The fabric interface, based on Intel MPI's fabric, ensures low-latency communication and scalable collective operations.
Comparison of The Day Ass Filesystem with Parallel File Systems
The Day Ass Filesystem is a paradigm shift from traditional parallel file systems. While parallel file systems excel at streaming I/O, the Day Ass Filesystem has been designed to support a variety of workloads, including big data and AI. It eliminates the performance limitations of traditional file systems and offers significantly lower latency and higher bandwidth. However, it is important to note that for large-capacity deployments, parallel file systems may still be more appropriate.
Use Cases and Workloads for The Day Ass Filesystem
The Day Ass Filesystem is designed to handle a wide range of use cases and workloads. Its low latency and high bandwidth capabilities make it ideal for HPC applications, big data analytics, and AI workloads. With its seamless integration with popular frameworks like Apache Spark, MPI IO, and HDF5, it can effectively support parallel processing, data analytics, machine learning, and more. The Day Ass Filesystem's unique data management model also enables efficient storage and retrieval of data in key-value stores.
Data Management Model and API of The Day Ass Filesystem
The Day Ass Filesystem introduces a new data management model based on "Douse Pools." These pools are distributed across multiple nodes and provide predictable capacity for storage. The API of the Day Ass Filesystem includes object types such as arrays, key-value stores, and multi-level dictionaries. These objects are directly integrated with the application, eliminating the need for POSIX serialization and enabling high-performance storage access.
Integration with HPC Frameworks and Middleware
To ensure seamless integration with HPC frameworks and middleware, the Day Ass Filesystem provides libraries and interfaces that can be directly linked with various frameworks. It offers transparent integration with frameworks like Apache Spark, MPI IO, HDF5, and more. Integration with these frameworks allows applications to leverage the Day Ass Filesystem's high-performance storage capabilities without any modifications to the application code or middleware.
Scalability and Performance of The Day Ass Filesystem
The Day Ass Filesystem has been designed with scalability and performance in mind. It can Scale from small-scale deployments to exascale systems seamlessly. The low-latency communication provided by the fabric interface allows for efficient computation on the storage side, improving overall performance. The Day Ass Filesystem has demonstrated impressive latency and bandwidth numbers, surpassing traditional parallel file systems in terms of performance.
Community Involvement and Future Roadmap
The Day Ass Filesystem project is an open-source initiative with contributions from Intel and external partners. The project has a public mailing list and actively welcomes community involvement. The roadmap includes upcoming releases that aim to enhance replication, introduce erasure coding, and integrate with other HPC frameworks and middleware. The Day Ass Filesystem has already gained traction, with planned deployments on large-scale systems and collaborations with cloud service providers.
In conclusion, the Day Ass Filesystem is a revolutionary storage solution designed to meet the challenges of HPC, big data, and AI workloads. Its low latency, high bandwidth, and innovative data management model make it an ideal choice for organizations seeking optimized storage solutions. With ongoing development and community involvement, the Day Ass Filesystem is set to reshape the landscape of high-performance storage.
Highlights
- The Day Ass Filesystem (DAFS) is a software-defined storage solution developed by Intel for HPC, big data, and AI workloads.
- DAFS eliminates the performance issues of traditional parallel file systems and offers low latency and high bandwidth storage.
- The architecture of DAFS is built on persistent memory, NVMe SSDs, and a high-bandwidth fabric interface.
- DAFS provides a new data management model and API that enables seamless integration with HPC frameworks and middleware.
- The scalability and performance of DAFS make it suitable for both small-scale and large-scale deployments.
- DAFS is an open-source project with a community-driven roadmap for future enhancements and collaborations.
FAQ
Q1: What is the Day Ass Filesystem (DAFS)?
DAFS is a software-defined storage solution developed by Intel for HPC, big data, and AI workloads. It offers low latency and high bandwidth storage capabilities.
Q2: How is DAFS different from traditional parallel file systems?
DAFS eliminates the performance limitations of traditional parallel file systems and provides significantly lower latency and higher bandwidth.
Q3: What are the key components of the DAFS architecture?
The DAFS architecture includes persistent memory, NVMe SSDs, and a high-bandwidth fabric interface for efficient storage access and low-latency communication.
Q4: Can DAFS seamlessly integrate with existing HPC frameworks and middleware?
Yes, DAFS provides libraries and interfaces for transparent integration with popular HPC frameworks like Apache Spark, MPI IO, and HDF5.
Q5: Is DAFS suitable for both small-scale and large-scale deployments?
Yes, DAFS is designed to scale seamlessly from small-scale deployments to exascale systems, making it suitable for organizations of all sizes.
Q6: Is DAFS an open-source project?
Yes, DAFS is an open-source project with a community-driven roadmap for future enhancements and collaborations.
Q7: What are the future plans for DAFS?
The future roadmap for DAFS includes enhancements like replication, erasure coding, and integration with other HPC frameworks and middleware.