PAIO: A Software-Defined Storage Data Plane Framework

Abstract: We propose PAIO, the first general-purpose framework that enables system designers to build custom-made Software-Defined Storage (SDS) data plane stages. It provides the means to implement storage optimizations adaptable to different workflows and user-defined policies, and allows straightforward integration with existing applications and I/O layers. PAIO allows stages to be integrated with modern SDS control planes to ensure holistic control and system-wide optimal performance. We demonstrate the performance and applicability of PAIO with two use cases. The first improves 99th percentile latency by 4x in industry-standard LSM-based key-value stores. The second ensures dynamic per-application bandwidth guarantees under shared storage environments.