Optimizing Server Placement for Parallel I/O in Switch-Based Clusters

In this paper, the authors consider how to optimize I/O server placement in order to improve parallel I/O performance in switch-based clusters. The significant advances in cluster networks in recent years have made it practical to connect tens of thousands of hosts via networks that have enormous and scalable total capacity, and in which communications between a host and any other host incur the same cost. The same cost property frees users from consideration of network contention and allows them to concentrate on load-balancing issues. They formulate the server placement problem on a cluster that has the same cost property as a weighted bipartite matching with the goal of balancing the workload on the I/O nodes.