@InCollection{sinclair:instability-book,
  author = {J.~B. Sinclair and J. Tang and P.~J. Varman},
  title = {Placement-Related Problems in Shared Disk {I/O}},
  booktitle = {Input/Output in Parallel and Distributed Computer Systems},
  chapter = {12},
  editor = {Ravi Jain and John Werth and James C. Browne},
  crossref = {iopads-book},
  year = {1996},
  series = {The Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer
  Science},
  volume = {362},
  pages = {271--289},
  publisher = {Kluwer Academic Publishers},
  earlier = {sinclair:instability},
  keywords = {parallel I/O, pario-bib},
  abstract = {In a shared-disk parallel I/O system, several processes may be
  accessing the disks concurrently. An important example is concurrent external
  merging arising in database management systems with multiple independent sort
  queries. Such a system may exhibit instability, with one of the processes
  racing ahead of the others and monopolizing I/O resources. This race can lead
  to serialization of the processes and poor disk utilization, even when the
  static load on the disks is balanced. The phenomenon can be avoided by proper
  layout of data on the disks, as well as through other I/O management
  strategies. This has implications for both data placement in multiple disk
  systems and task partitioning for parallel processing.},
  comment = {Part of a whole book on parallel I/O; see iopads-book.}
}