Summary: xFS: A Wide Area Mass Storage File System
Randolph Y. Wang and Thomas E. Anderson
frywang,teag@cs.berkeley.edu
Computer Science Division
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
Abstract
The current generation of file systems are inadequate
in facing the new technological challenges of wide area
networks and massive storage. xFS is a prototype file
system we are developing to explore the issues brought
about by these technological advances. xFS adapts
many of the techniques used in the field of high per­
formance multiprocessor design. It organizes hosts into
a hierarchical structure so locality within clusters of
workstations can be better exploited. By using an
invalidation­based write back cache coherence protocol,
xFS minimizes network usage. It exploits the file system
naming structure to reduce cache coherence state. xFS
also integrates different storage technologies in a uni­

Source: Anderson, Tom - Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington at Seattle

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences