by T. Anderson et al., SOSP 1995
Abstract:
In this paper, we propose a new paradigm for network file system design, serverless network file systems. While traditional network file systems rely on a central server machine, a serverless system utilizes workstations cooperating as peers to provide all file system services. Any machine in the system can store, cache, or control any block of data. Our approach uses this location independence, in combination with fast local area networks, to provide better performance and scalability than traditional file systems. Further, because any machine in the system can assume the responsibilities of a failed component, our serverless design also provides high availability via redundant data storage. To demonstrate our approach, we have implemented a prototype serverless network file system called xFS. Preliminary performance measurements suggest that our architecture achieves its goal of scalability. For instance, in a 32-node xFS system with 32 active clients, each client receives nearly as much read or write throughput as it would see if it were the only active client.
Link to the full paper:
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/faculty/tkosar/cse710_spring13/papers/xfs.pdf
Friday, January 25, 2013
Disconnected Operation in the Coda File System
by J. Kistler et al., SOSP 1991
Abstract:
Disconnected operation is a mode of operation that enables a client to continue accessing critical data during temporary failures of a shared data repository. An important, though not exclusive, application of disconnected operation is in supporting portable computers. In this paper, we show that disconnected operation is feasible, efficient and usable by describing its design and imple- mentation in the Coda File System. The central idea behind our work is that caching of data, now widely used for performance, can also be exploited to improve availability.
Abstract:
Disconnected operation is a mode of operation that enables a client to continue accessing critical data during temporary failures of a shared data repository. An important, though not exclusive, application of disconnected operation is in supporting portable computers. In this paper, we show that disconnected operation is feasible, efficient and usable by describing its design and imple- mentation in the Coda File System. The central idea behind our work is that caching of data, now widely used for performance, can also be exploited to improve availability.
Link to the full paper:
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/faculty/tkosar/cse710_spring13/papers/coda.pdf
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Scale and Performance in a Distributed File System (AFS)
by J. Howard et al., ACM ToCS 1988
Abstract:
Abstract:
The Andrew File System is a location-transparent distributed tile system that will eventually span more than 5000 workstations at Carnegie Mellon University. Large scale affects performance and complicates system operation. In this paper we present observations of a prototype implementation, motivate changes in the areas of cache validation, server process structure, name translation, and low-level storage representation, and quantitatively demonstrate Andrew’s ability to scale gracefully. We establish the importance of whole-file transfer and caching in Andrew by comparing its perform- ance with that of Sun Microsystem’s NFS tile system. We also show how the aggregation of files into volumes improves the operability of the system.
Link to the full paper:
The Sun Network File System: Design, Implementation and Experience
by R. Sandberg, USENIX 1986.
Abstract:
The Sun Network Filesystem (NFS) provides transparent, remote access to filesystems. Unlike many other remote filesystem implementations under UNIX, NFS is designed to be easily portable to other operating systems and machine architectures. It uses an External Data Representation (XDR) specification to describe protocols in a machine and system independent way. NFS is implemented on top of a Remote Procedure Call package (RPC) to help simplify protocol definition, implementation, and maintenance.
In order to build NFS into the UNIX kernel in a way that is transparent to applications, we decided to add a new interface to the kernel which separates generic filesystem operations from specific filesystem implementations. The “filesystem interface” consists of two parts: the Virtual File System (VFS) interface defines the operations that can be done on a filesystem, while the virtual node (vnode) interface defines the operations that can be done on a file within that filesystem. This new interface allows us to implement and install new filesystems in much the same way as new device drivers are added to the kernel.
In this paper we discuss the design and implementation of the filesystem interface in the UNIX kernel and the NFS virtual filesystem. We compare NFS to other remote filesystem implementations, and describe some interesting NFS ports that have been done, including the IBM PC implementation under MS/DOS and the VMS server implementation. We also describe the user-level NFS server implementation which allows simple server ports without modification to the underlying operating system. We conclude with some ideas for future enhancements.
In this paper we use the term server to refer to a machine that provides resources to the network; a client is a machine that accesses resources over the network; a user is a person “logged in” at a client; an application is a program that executes on a client; and a workstation is a client machine that typically supports one user at a time.
Link to the full paper:
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