Improved system performance

GPFS file systems can improve system performance in a number of ways.

• Allowing multiple processes or applications on all nodes in the cluster simultaneous access to the same files. That is, it allows concurrent reads and writes from multiple nodes.
• Increasing aggregate bandwidth of your file system by spreading reads and writes across multiple disks.
• Balancing the load evenly across all disks to maximize their combined throughput, eliminating storage hotspots.
• Supporting very large file and file system sizes.
• Allowing concurrent reads and writes from multiple nodes.
• Provides sophisticated token management that handles fast and fine-grained access to cluster, file system, and file resources.
• Allowing for the specification of multiple networks for GPFS daemon communication and for GPFS administration command usage within your cluster.

Achieving high throughput to a single, large file that requires striping the data across multiple disks and disk controllers.

GPFS implements data striping in the file system instead of relying on data striping in a separate volume manager layer. As GPFS manages its own data striping, it enables the GPFS to achieve fault tolerance and balance load across adapters, storage controllers, and disks. Large files in GPFS are divided into equal sized blocks, and the consecutive blocks are placed on different disks in a round-robin manner.

GPFS automatically detects common data access patterns and automatically begins prefetching data accordingly. The prefetching and caching provide high throughput and fast response times. Some of the recognized I/O patterns include sequential, reverse sequential, and various forms of strided access patterns.