OGSSim: Open Generic data Storage systems Simulation tool

Abstract

In this paper, an open and generic storage simulator is proposed. It simulates with accuracy multi-tiered storage systems based on heterogeneous devices including HDDs, SSDs and the connecting buses. The target simulated system is constructed from the hardware configuration input, then sent to the simulator modules along with the trace file and the appropriate simulator functions are selected and executed. Each module of the simulator is executed by a thread, and communicates with the others via ZeroMQ, a message transmission API using sockets for the information transfer. The result is an accurate behavior of the simulated system submitted to a specific workload and represented by performance and reliability metrics. No restriction is put on the input hardware configuration which can handle different levels of details and makes this simulator generic. The diversity of the supported devices, regardless to their nature: disks, buses,..etc and organisation: JBOD, RAID,..etc makes the simulator open to many technologies. The modularity of its design and the independence of its execution functions, makes it open to handle any additional mapping, access, maintenance or reconstruction strategies. The conducted tests using OLTP and scientific workloads show accurate results, obtained in a competitive runtime.