A Survey of Distributed File Systems

Abstract This paper is a survey of the current state of the art in the design and implementation of distributed file systems. It consists of four major parts: an overview of background material, case studies of a number of contemporary file systems, identification of key design techniques, and an examination of current research issues. The systems surveyed are Sun NFS, Apollo Domain, Andrew, IBM AIX DS, AT&T RFS, and Sprite. The coverage of background material includes a taxonomy of file system issues, a brief history of distributed file systems, and a summary of empirical research on file properties. A comprehensive bibliography forms an important of the paper. Copyright (C) 1988,1989 M. Satyanarayanan The author was supported in the writing of this paper by the National Science Foundation (Contract No. CCR-8657907), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Order No. 4976, Contract F33615-84-K-1520) and the IBM Corporation (Faculty Development Award). The views and conclusions in t...