MBWU: Benefit Quantification for Data Access Function Offloading

Abstract

The storage industry is considering new kinds of storage de- vices that support data access function offloading, i.e. the ability to perform data access functions on the storage device itself as opposed to performing it on a separate compute system to which the storage device is connected. But what is the benefit of offloading to a storage device that is controlled by an embedded platform, very different from a host platform? To quantify the benefit, we need a measurement methodology that enables apple-to-apple comparisons between different platforms. We propose a Media-based Work Unit (MBWU, pronounced ‘‘MibeeWu’’), and an MBWU-based measurement methodology to standardize the platform efficiency evaluation so as to quantify the benefit of offloading. To demonstrate the merit of this methodology, we implemented a prototype to automate quantifying the benefit of offloading the key-value data access function.

Publication
HPC I/O in the Data Center Workshop (HPC-IODC 2019, co-located with ISC-HPC 2019)