Xinqi Chen, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Yu Zhang, Alibaba Group; Erci Xu, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Changhong Wang, Jifei Yi, Qiuping Wang, Shizhuo Sun, and Zhongyu Wang, Alibaba Group; Haonan Wu, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Junping Wu, Hailin Peng, Rong Liu, Yinhu Wang, Jiaji Zhu, and Jiesheng Wu, Alibaba Group; Guangtao Xue, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Shanghai Key Laboratory of Trusted Data Circulation, Governance and Web3; Patrick P. C. Lee, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Efficient cloud computing relies on high-performance Elastic Block Storage (EBS) services, where virtual disk (VD) image loading significantly affects user experience. While the commonly used "lazy loading" approach reduces cold-start time from minutes to sub-seconds, our trace analysis of around 160,000 real-world image loading events in Alibaba EBS reveals that slow I/Os during initial block access constitute the primary performance bottleneck, accounting for 40% of all slow I/Os. We propose ThinkAhead, a data-driven image preloading system for VDs. ThinkAhead comprises various techniques to predict efficient block preloading sequences for images with historical traces based on runtime conditions and address corner cases with limited or no historical traces. Trace-driven simulation and cluster experiments show that ThinkAhead improves the data block hit rate by up to 7.27× and reduces tail waiting time by up to 98.7% across various image types compared to lazy loading and various baselines.
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author = {Xinqi Chen and Yu Zhang and Erci Xu and Changhong Wang and Jifei Yi and Qiuping Wang and Shizhuo Sun and Zhongyu Wang and Haonan Wu and Junping Wu and Hailin Peng and Rong Liu and Yinhu Wang and Jiaji Zhu and Jiesheng Wu and Guangtao Xue and Patrick P. C. Lee},
title = {How Soon is Now? Preloading Images for Virtual Disks with {ThinkAhead}},
booktitle = {24th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST 26)},
year = {2026},
isbn = {978-1-939133-53-3},
address = {Santa Clara, CA},
pages = {399--414},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/fast26/presentation/chen},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = feb
}
