Newsgroups: comp.parallel.pvm
From: moyer@mathcs.emory.edu (Steve Moyer)
Subject: Parallel I/O System for PVM
Keywords: parallel I/O, PIOUS, PVM
Organization: Emory University, Dept of Math and CS
Date: 3 Oct 1994 11:45:20 -0400
Message-ID: <36p8ug$49k@labss19.mathcs.emory.edu>

[note: may be a duplicate due to a problem with our posting program - SM]


			      Announcing

			    PIOUS for PVM
		    (Parallel I/O System for PVM)

		       [Call for Beta Testers]



PIOUS is a complete Parallel I/O System for the PVM distributed computing
environment.  Just as PVM implements a virtual multicomputer on top
of a heterogeneous network of computing resources, PIOUS implements a fully
functional parallel file system on top of PVM.  PVM applications obtain
transparent access to shared permanent storage via PIOUS library functions.

PIOUS implements the traditional functionality found in most parallel
computer file systems, as well as a number of unique features, including:

    * Two-dimensional file objects and logical file views

    * Coordinated file access with guaranteed consistency semantics

    * Data declustering for scalable performance

    * Transaction support and user-selectable fault tolerance modes

    * Extended file maintenance primitives for managing declustered files


PIOUS should work on most systems that support PVM 3.2 or later.  To date,
PIOUS has been tested on the following:  Sun4/SunOS 4.1.3, Sun4/SunOS 5.3,
SGI/IRIX 4.0.5, Dec Alpha/OSF1 2.1, and HP 9000/HP-UX.

The PIOUS distribution comes complete with a user's guide and reference
manual as well as on-line man pages.  Automatic build scripts similar
to those supplied with PVM are provided as well.

At this time we would like to solicit offers from a small number of users
who are interested in using/testing a Beta version of the system prior to
general release.  We are interested in testing on a variety of platforms
and applications, preferably including some with heavy I/O requirements.
Note that the Beta version of the PIOUS interface is implemented with
C-language bindings, though later versions will provide Fortran language
bindings as well.

If you are interested in being a Beta test site, and will have time to use
the system over the next few weeks, send mail to:

		       pious@mathcs.emory.edu

Further information on PIOUS can be found in [1,2]; postscript versions of
these papers are available via anonymous ftp from ftp.mathcs.emory.edu:pub/vss
in the files piousifip94.ps and piousshpcc94.ps.

Regards,

Steve Moyer
Vaidy Sunderam




[1]  Steven A. Moyer and V. S. Sunderam.  A Parallel I/O System for
     High-Performance Distributed Computing.  In Proceedings of the
     IFIP WG10.3 Working Conference on Programming Environments for Massively
     Parallel Distributed Systems. April, 1994.


[2]  Steven A. Moyer and V. S. Sunderam.  PIOUS: A Scalable Parallel I/O
     System for Distributed Computing Environments.  In Proceedings of the
     Scalable High-Performance Computing Conference, pages 71-78, 1994.


-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven A. Moyer                            Email:  moyer@mathcs.emory.edu
Mathematics and Computer Science           Office: (404)-727-0668
Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322        Fax:    (404)-727-5611

