Design and evaluation of data storage and retrieval strategies in a distributed memory continuous media server

High performance servers and high-speed networks will form the backbone of the infra-structure required for distributed multimedia information systems. Given that the goal of such a server is to support hundreds of interactive data streams simultaneously, various tradeoffs are possible with respect to the storage of data on secondary memory, and its retrieval therefrom. In this paper we identify and evaluate these tradeoffs. We evaluate the effect of varying the stripe factor and also the performance of batched retrieval of disk-resident data. We develop a methodology to predict the stream capacity of such a server. The evaluation is done for both uniform and skewed access patterns. Experimental results on the Intel Paragon computer are presented.