A comparison of two network-based file servers

Abstract

This paper compares two working file servers in terms of their design goals, implementation issues, performance, and service experience. One server, the Xerox Distributed File System (XDFS) [10], was built at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center; the other, the Cambridge File Server (CFS) [2, 3, 4], was built at the Cambridge University Computer Laboratory. Both file servers support concurrent random access to files over a network, and each offers an atomic transaction mechanism covering modifications to files.