Quick Start Tutorial

Get IOWarp running with Docker in 5 minutes. This tutorial walks you through running the IOWarp runtime with buffering services.

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose installed
• At least 8 GB of available RAM

1. Create Configuration

Create a wrp_conf.yaml file:

# IOWarp Runtime Configuration
compose:
  - mod_name: wrp_cte_core
    pool_name: wrp_cte
    pool_query: local
    pool_id: 512.0
    storage:
      - path: "ram::cte_ram_tier1"
        bdev_type: "ram"
        capacity_limit: "16GB"
        score: 0.0

Storage parameters:

Parameter	Description
path	ram::<name> for RAM, /dev/<device> for block devices
bdev_type	ram, nvme, or aio (async I/O)
capacity_limit	Max capacity (KB, MB, GB, TB)
score	Tier priority: 0.0 = lowest, 1.0 = highest

2. Start the Runtime

Create a docker-compose.yml:

services:
  iowarp-runtime:
    image: iowarp/iowarp:latest
    container_name: iowarp-runtime
    volumes:
      - ./wrp_conf.yaml:/etc/iowarp/wrp_conf.yaml:ro
    ports:
      - "5555:5555"
    shm_size: 8g
    mem_limit: 8g
    ipc: shareable
    stdin_open: true
    tty: true
    restart: "no"

Start it:

docker-compose up -d

3. Run Benchmarks

The demos/benchmark/ directory contains a complete Docker Compose setup for running CTE benchmarks:

cd demos/benchmark

# Run default benchmark (Put test)
docker-compose up

# Run specific test with custom parameters
TEST_CASE=Get IO_SIZE=4m IO_COUNT=1000 docker-compose up

Benchmark Parameters

Parameter	Default	Description
TEST_CASE	Put	Put, Get, or PutGet
NUM_PROCS	1	Number of parallel processes
DEPTH	4	Queue depth for concurrent operations
IO_SIZE	1m	I/O operation size (b, k, m, g)
IO_COUNT	100	Number of operations

Next Steps

• View Research Demos — See IOWarp in action with real scientific workflows
• Explore the Platform — Learn about IOWarp's context engineering architecture
• Try CLIO Kit — Use 16 MCP servers for AI-powered scientific computing
• Deployment Guide — Deploy IOWarp on HPC clusters
• Configuration Reference — Deep dive into configuration options

Support

• Open an issue on the GitHub repository
• Join the Zulip Chat
• Visit the IOWarp website
• Email: grc@illinoistech.edu