1. In a cluster of computing nodes having shared access to one or more volumes of data storage using a parallel file system, a method for managing the data storage, comprising: selecting a first one of the nodes to serve as a session manager node; selecting a second one of the nodes to serve as a session node for a data management application; creating a session of the data management application on the session node by sending a message from the session node to the session manager node, causing the session manager node to distribute information regarding the session among the nodes in the cluster; and responsive to the information distributed by the session manager node, receiving events at the session node from the nodes in the cluster for processing by the data management application.