SCA/HPAsia 2026 Tutorial: Accelerating HPC Application I/O with Fast Node-Local Storage

13:30 - 16:30, Mon, January 26, 2026

Osaka International Convention Center, Osaka, Japan

Presenters:

• Chen Wang, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
• Jae-Seung Yeom, Computer Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, US

Introduction

As HPC applications grow in complexity and scale, I/O (Input/Output) performance remains a persistent bottleneck. Many modern workloads, including coupled simulations, AI integration, and in-situ analytics generate and consume large volumes of data that stress shared parallel file systems. This tutorial introduces two tools, UnifyFS and DYAD, for accelerating application I/O with fast node-local storage.

UnifyFS is a user-level file system that provides a shared namespace backed by node-local storage, enabling scalable, high-throughput I/O for write-heavy workloads. DYAD complements this by improving data locality of dependent workflow components (e.g., simulation and analysis) to speed up I/O performance for read-heavy workloads.

This hands-on tutorial will guide participants through:

• The challenges of I/O performance at scale in HPC environments
• The design and capabilities of UnifyFS and DYAD
• How to deploy and configure these tools on HPC systems
• Integration with HPC applications (e.g., scientific simulations and AI training) and I/O libraries (e.g., MPI-IO, HDF5)
• Use cases demonstrating I/O acceleration

Participants will gain practical experience through exercises and real-world examples that highlight how to reduce I/O time, alleviate pressure on shared storage, and optimize coupled workflows.

Target Audience

This tutorial is designed for a broad range of HPC practitioners, with a focus on beginner to intermediate-level attendees. Approximately 30% of the content will introduce core concepts and motivations for node-local storage systems in HPC, while the remaining 70% will explore intermediate topics such as integrating UnifyFS and DYAD into real applications, performance tuning, and deployment best practices.

Prior experience with UnifyFS or DYAD is not required.

Tutorial Structure (Tentative)