@Unpublished{oldfield:armada,
  author = {Ron Oldfield and David Kotz},
  title = {The Armada Parallel File System},
  year = {1998},
  month = {November},
  note = {Submitted to IOPADS'99},
  keyword = {parallel I/O, multiprocessor file system, dfk},
  abstract = {The rapid improvements in technology have made the challenge of
  providing a robust, high performance parallel file system incredibly
  difficult. Hardware advancements have led to faster processors, high
  bandwidth networks, and larger amounts of primary, secondary and tertiary
  storage. Although each of these components is advancing at a rapid pace, some
  components are improving at a faster rate. For example, processor speeds have
  increased at a rate of 60\% to 80\% per year, while memory and disk access
  times have decreased by only one-third in the past 10 years. This trend, if
  not addressed, will most certainly lead to an I/O bottleneck for many
  parallel applications. \par Conventional parallel file systems try to relieve
  this bottleneck by providing fixed policies that work well for the general
  case; however, as we gain experience with parallel file systems, it becomes
  increasingly clear that a single solution does not suit all applications. For
  example, it appears to be impossible to find a single appropriate interface,
  caching policy, file structure, or disk-management strategy. Furthermore, the
  proliferation of file-system interfaces and abstractions make applications
  difficult to port. \par We propose to allow the application library to have
  control over virtually all aspects of the parallel file system. Our parallel
  file system (Armada) is composed of a fixed core that runs on the I/O node,
  and high-level application libraries that are implemented on top of the core
  system. The application libraries are responsible for providing an interface
  and functionality to the application while the core system arbitrates usage
  of the I/O-node resources. \par This paper discusses some of the problems
  with conventional file systems and then gives a high level description of the
  Armada parallel file system.}
}