A Usage Profile and Evaluation of a Wide-Area Distributed File System

The evolution of the Andrew File System (AFS) into a wide-area distributed file system has encouraged collaboration and information dissemination on a much broader scale than ever before. In this paper, we examine AFS as a provider of wide-area file services to over 80 organizations around the world. We discuss usage characteristics of AFS derived from empirical measurements of the system, and from user responses to a questionnaire. Our observations indicate that AFS provides robust and efficient data access in its current configuration, thus confirming its viability as a design point for wide-area distributed file systems. This research was funded by the Advanced Research Project Agency, under contract number MDA972-90-C-0036, ARPA order number 7312. The views and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not represent the official position of ARPA, Transarc Corporation or Carnegie Mellon University. 

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1994
• Where: USENIX
• Authors: Mirjana Spasojevic, Mahadev Satyanarayanan
• Keywords: Distributed File Systems, File Systems, Operating System, USENIX 1994, Wide-area Distributed File