Seamless Access to Decentralized Storage Services in Computational Grids via a Virtual File System

This paper describes a novel technique for establishing a virtual file system that allows data to be transferred user-transparently and on-demand across computing and storage servers of a computational grid. Its implementation is based on extensions to the Network File System (NFS) that are encapsulated in software proxies. A key differentiator between this approach and previous work is the way in which file servers are partitioned: while conventional file systems share a single (logical) server across multiple users, the virtual file system employs multiple proxy servers that are created, customized and terminated dynamically, for the duration of a computing session, on a peruser basis. Furthermore, the solution does not require modifications to standard NFS clients and servers. The described approach has been deployed in the context of the PUNCH network-computing infrastructure, and is unique in its ability to integrate unmodified, interactive applications (even commercial ones) and ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2004
• Where: CLUSTER
• Authors: Renato J. O. Figueiredo, Nirav H. Kapadia, José A. B. Fortes
• Keywords: CLUSTER 2004, Distributed And Parallel Computing, File System, Native Nfs, Virtual File System