Deploying pNFS Across the WAN: First Steps in HPC Grid Computing

Global file systems promise great advantages in convenience, performance, and ubiquitous access over more traditional data movement mechanisms for HPC grids. Unfortunately, their widespread acceptance is limited due to licensing issues and lack of interoperability. Using the pNFS extension to the popular NFS standard, the paper performed the first large-scale test of non-proprietary clients accessing GPFS servers within a real HPC Grid environment. Extremely high transfer rates across the TeraGrid Wide Area Network were achieved and one sees this as a possible harbinger of a much wider applicability for global file systems.