As clusters require faster and faster access to data, while maintaining reliability, new filesystems are being developed to try to break the bottlenecks and provide scalable solutions. The next generation of filesystems, dubbed object based file systems, help break performance barriers by allowing data devices to manage where data is stored.
The first part of this series covered distributed file systems, with a focus on those using NFS as the underlying protocol. In the second part, we examined three parallel file systems based on more traditional architectures: GPFS from IBM, Ibrix, and MPFSi from EMC.
In this third and final installment, I will cover what might be described as the next generation of parallel file systems, object based file systems. As with the previous installments, I won’t be able to cover all of the file systems which fit the description due to space considerations, but will try to focus on those that are most relevant.
A Brief Introduction to Object Based Storage
Object storage sounds simple, and conceptually it is, but just like all of the other parallel file systems many gotchas need to be addressed to make it reliable and useful as a real file system. The key concept of an object based file system needs to be emphasized since it is a powerful concept for parallel file systems.
In a more classic file system, such as a block based file system, the metadata manager is contacted and a set of inodes or blocks is allocated for a…
Please log in to view this content.
Not Yet a Member?
Register with LinuxMagazine.com and get free access to the entire archive, including:
