For many next-generation applications, constraints imposed by I/O limit the level of achievable performance.  A large and important class of resource-intensive applications are irregular, containing complex, data-dependent execution behavior, and dynamic, with shifting resource demands that vary over time. Because the interactions between application and system software change across applications and during a single application's execution, analysts aiming to optimize performance require runtime libraries and analysis tools that can reveal an application's I/O  behavior.

The Pablo project has developed a portable performance data analysis environment,  used to capture and reveal the I/O patterns of applications executing on a variety of high-performance, single and multiple-processor systems. To catalyze further research and education aimed at optimizing I/O,  the National Science Foundation is funding the extension, documentation, and deployment of Pablo tools and data. You may order any of these  tools to be sent to you on DVD or CD-ROM.

Furthermore a collection of files are made available through this facility for use in the research and development of I/O optimization methodologies and tools. These files trace the I/O activity of a collection of data-bound applications that were executed on various high-performance platforms as part of ongoing scientific/engineering research. Reflecting a variety of hardware and file system configurations, the data from the files are made available in their entirety and through a database that can be queried online to perform statistical analyses on the data.