A GridFTP transport driver for Globus XIO.
GridFTP is a high-performance, reliable data transfer protocol optimized for high-bandwidth wide-area networks. Based on the Internet FTP protocol, it defines extensions for high-performance operation and security. The Globus implementation of GridFTP provides a modular and extensible data transfer system architecture suitable for wide area and high-performance environments. GridFTP is the de facto standard in projects requiring secure, robust, high-speed bulk data transport. For example, the high energy physics community is basing its entire tiered data movement infrastructure for the Large Hadron Collider computing Grid on GridFTP; the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory routinely uses GridFTP to move 1 TB a day during production runs; and GridFTP is the recommended data transfer mechanism to maximize data transfer rates on the TeraGrid. Commonly used GridFTP clients include globus-url-copy, uberftp, and the Globus Reliable File Transfer service. In this paper, we present a Globus XIO based client to GridFTP that provides a simple Open/Close/Read/Write (OCRW) interface to the users. Such a client greatly eases the addition of GridFTP support to third-party programs, such as SRB and MPICH-G2. Further, this client provides an easier and familiar interface for applications to efficiently access remote files. We compare the performance of this client with that of globus-url-copy on multiple endpoints in the TeraGrid infrastructure. We perform both memory-to-memory and disk-to-disk transfers and show that the performance of this OCRW client is comparable to that of globus-url-copy. We also show that our GridFTP client significantly outperforms the GPFS WAN on the TeraGrid.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- SC; NSF
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 1001598
- Report Number(s):
- ANL/MCS/CP-61742
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- ENGLISH
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