Patent ID: 8365171

Claim:
A computer-performed method for assigning I/O agents in an MPI job using an MPI library, the method comprising: generating an instance of a first world having a first group of tasks for execution within a corresponding first group of compute nodes, wherein the first world is a world for executing at least a portion of the MPI job; executing the first group of tasks in the first world; assigning a subset of the first group of tasks as I/O agents, wherein the subset encompasses less than the total number of tasks of the first group; starting I/O worker threads by the MPI library for servicing input/output requests within the corresponding I/O agents, wherein the I/O worker threads execute in tasks assigned as the I/O agents, whereby execution of a remainder of the tasks not assigned as the I/O agents are not disrupted by input/output request operations; receiving input/output requests from the MPI library for tasks that are not I/O agents; and performing input/output operations in satisfaction of the input/output requests using the worker threads executing in the corresponding I/O agents.