Smart file objects: a remote file access paradigm

This paper describes o new scheme for remote file access called Smart File Objects (SFO). The SF0 is an object-oriented application-specific file access paradigm designed to attack the bottleneck imposed by high Iotency low bandwidth networks such (IS wide-area and wireless networks. The SF0 uses application and network inform&on to adaptively prefetch needed data in pnmllel with the aecurion of the application. The SF0 con offer additional advantages such (IS non-blocking I/O, bulk I/O, improved& access APIs, and increased relinbiliry We describe the SF0 concept, a prototype implementation in the Mentat system, and the results obtained with o distributed gene sequence application running across the Internet and vBNS. The results show the P otential of the SF0 opprooch to improve application performance.