DMetabench—a metadata benchmark for distributed file systems

The performance of metadata processing in large distributed file systems currently presents larger challenges than scaling of data throughput. The paper presents a novel, distributed benchmark called DMetabench for measuring the performance of metadata operations. DMetabench runs in environments with potentially thousands of nodes and allows an assessment of the scalability of metadata operations. Additionally, precise run-time performance data is preserved which allows for a better understanding of performance artifacts. Example results from production file systems are provided and discussed. Possible applications of knowledge about metadata performance scaling include the choice of an optimal parallelization strategy for metadata-intensive workloads in a specific runtime environment.