A file storage implementation for very large distributed systems

Abstract

The issues that must be considered in structuring file storage for very large distributed systems are discussed. The authors describe the distributed file system they are developing, which is called FACE (file system for ACE). The first prototype of FACE consists of a series of enhancements to Sun's network file system (NFS) in order to add a stashing capability. User processes interact with the system call interface to perform file and stashing operations. These operations may be invoked directly by user processes or by the FACE user-level routines. The FACE user-level routines implement diverse facilities to allow users to select the files that will be stashed (or dropped from the stash). The first FACE prototype is being implemented on a Sun 3/50 computer running Suri's Unix 4.2 release 3.3.<>