Filing system interfaces to support distributed multimedia applications

As multimedia applications become part of mainstream computing, storage systems have to deal with many different file types, each with their own usage patterns and resource requirements. However, conventional file systems do not recognise this heterogeneity, and treat all stored data alike. By using file classes and interfaces to describe files of different types, useful information can be provided by the application and used by the file system to choose appropriate storage policies. An architecture is proposed by which file systems can provide support for different file classes in a flexible and extensible manner. This architecture is based on the Multi-Service Storage Architecture (MSSA) and will be implemented on the Nemesis operating system, which provides the resource guarantees necessary for multimedia applications.