Newsgroups: comp.parallel.mpi,comp.parallel.pvm
From: peter@usfca.edu (Peter Pacheco)
Subject: Re: Thinking about parallel I/O
Organization: University of San Francisco
Date: 13 Jul 1995 23:48:34 GMT
Message-ID: <3u4bci$nbs@noc.usfca.edu>

David M. Beazley (dmb@bifrost.Lanl.GOV) wrote: [material deleted]

> 1.   Is parallel I/O important to most users?
> 2.   What is the current state of parallel I/O libraries? 
> 3.   Does anyone have any positive or negative experiences related 
>      to I/O using PVM and MPI that they can share?

It was fairly clear at the first meeting of the MPI-2 Forum last March 
that I/O was extremely important to users -- someone observed that most 
users felt that one of the main deficiencies of MPI was its failure to 
specify any I/O.  However, the consensus was that since many of the active 
participants in the Forum were not I/O experts, and since the problem of 
parallel I/O was already being addressed elsewhere (once again, see http:
//www.cs.dartmouth.edu/pario.html), the MPI-2 Forum shouldn't address the 
issue.

There was an attempt by one of the Forum participants (you might
guess who . . .) to get a minimal statement about process access to
stdio added to the Standard.  This, however, was not received warmly by 
the rest of the Forum.

Regards,
Peter Pacheco
peter@usfca.edu

