Thunder: Minimum I/O Latency of Disaggregated Storage by Packet-Level Write-Through

The state-of-the-art storage structure relies on the NVMe devices and SmartNICs to provide high IO performance and low CPU overhead. In data centers, the existing data transmission control and storage methods are not ideal, resulting in long flow completion time, especially for small IO, which directly affects the performance of disaggregated storage systems. In this paper, we present Thunder, a disaggregated storage solution designed to minimize tail latency. Firstly, Thunder achieves the minimum I/O tail latency for disaggregated storage via packet-level write-through, and has an ingenious mechanism for precise semantic conversion from message level to packet level. It refers to the process of converting message level data into packet level data and ensuring the integrity and reliability of data transmission. This process involves steps such as message segmentation, addressing, acknowledgment, and reassembly. Secondly, we present a novel optimization approach for end-to-end and information transmission processes, aiming to address a range of issues such as user usage, congestion control, and system compatibility. Finally, we conducted both testbed and large-scale simulations to verify the performance of Thunder. The results show that Thunder reduced the average latency and tail latency by 71.6% and 59.7%, respectively compared to Gimbal and Timely. Furthermore, it effectively avoids queue head blocking and congestion diffusion in PFC, increasing throughput by 2.5X and reducing tail latency by an average of 49.7%.