Optimizing Storage Performance for VM-Based Mobile Computing
i i i i Optimizing Storage Performance for VM-Based Mobile Computing STEPHEN SMALDONE,RutgersUniversity BENJAMIN GILBERT and JAN HARKES, Carnegie Mellon University LIVIU IFTODE,RutgersUniversity 5 MAHADEV SATYANARAYANAN, Carnegie Mellon University This article investigates the transient use of free local storage for improving performance in VM-based mobile computing systems implemented as thick clients on host PCs. We use the term TransientPC systems to refer to these types of systems. The solution we propose, called TransPart, uses the higher-performing local storage of host hardware to speed up performance-critical operations. Our solution constructs a virtual storage device on demand (which we call transient storage) by borrowing free disk blocks from the host’s storage. In this article, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of a TransPart prototype, which requires no modifications to the software or hardware of a host computer. Experimental results confirm that TransPart offers low overhead and startup cost, while improving user experience. Categories and Subject Descriptors: D.4.2 [Operating Systems]: Storage Management; D.4.3 [Operating Systems]: File Systems Management General Terms: Design, Experimentation, Management, Performance Additional Key Words and Phrases: Disk borrowing, file system, free block borrowing, mobile computing, opportunistic mobile computing, performance optimization, pervasive computing, storage, transient storage, TransPart, virtualization, virtual machine, VM ACM Reference Format: Smaldone, S., Gilbert, B., Harkes, J., Iftode, L., and Satyanarayanan, M. 2013. Optimizing storage perfor- mance for VM-based mobile computing. ACM Trans. Comput. Syst. 31, 2, Article 5 (May 2013), 25 pages. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2465346.2465348 1. INTRODUCTION A growing number of systems exploit virtual machine (VM) technology to encapsulate and dynamically deliver user-specific state to a computer, thus enabling user mobility across hardware.
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