ACM Computing Surveys 28A(4), December 1996, http://www.acm.org/surveys/1996/ChoudharyFile/. Copyright © 1996 by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. See the permissions statement below.


CITATION PAGE FOR

Strategic Directions in Computing Research

Working Group on Storage I/O for Large-Scale Computing

Large-Scale File Systems with the Flexibility of Databases


Alok Choudhary

Northwestern University, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Technological Institute, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL, 60208-3118, USA
choudhar@ece.nwu.edu, http://web.eecs.nwu.edu/~choudhar/

David Kotz

Dartmouth College, Department of Computer Science
6211 Sudikoff Laboratory, Hanover, NH, 03755-3510, USA


Abstract: We note that large-scale computing includes many applications with intensive I/O demands. A data-storage system for such applications must address two issues: locating the appropriate data set, and accessing the contents of the data set. Today, there are two extreme models of data location and management: 1) file systems, which can be fast but which require a user to manage the structure of the file-name space and, often, of the file contents; and 2) object-oriented-database systems, in which even the smallest granule of data is stored as an object with associated access methods, which is very flexible but often slow. We propose a solution that may provide the performance of file systems with the flexibility of object databases.

Categories and Subject Descriptors: B.4.3 [Input-Output and Data Communications]: Interconnections - Interfaces; C.2.4 [Computer Communication Networks]: Distributed Systems - Network Operating Systems; D.4.2 [Operating Systems]: Storage Management - Storage Hierarchies; D.4.3 [Operating Systems]: File Systems Management - Distributed File Systems; D.3.3 [Programming Languages]: Language Constructs and Features - Data Type and Structures; E.2 [Data Storage Representation]: Composite Structures; E.5 [Files]: Optimizations; H.2 [Database management]: Systems.

General Terms: Parallel I/O, File System, Database

Additional Key Words and Phrases: High-Performance I/O, Parallel File System, Runtime Systems, Database Management, Storage Systems, Compilation


Publication Information

Citation
Choudhary, A., and Kotz, D., 1996. Large-Scale File Systems with the Flexibility of Databases, Computing Surveys, 28A(4), December, http://www.acm.org/surveys/1996/ChoudharyFile/
Submission date
June 14, 1996
Revision date
October 5, 17, 22, 23, and 31, 1996
Acceptance date
October 31, 1996

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Auxiliary Information

This paper is one position statement among many from the Working Group on Storage I/O Issues in Large-Scale Computing of the Workshop on Strategic Directions in Computing Research.

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Last modified: Fri Dec 6 20:09:39 1996
David Kotz