Introduction to Network File System (NFS)
This lesson presents the motivation behind distributed file systems.
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Benefits of a distributed file system
One of the first uses of distributed client/server computing was in the realm of distributed file systems. In such an environment, there are a number of client machines and one server (or a few); the server stores the data on its disks, and clients request data through well-formed protocol messages. The figure below depicts the basic setup.
As you can see from the picture, the server has the disks, and clients send messages across a network to access their directories and files on those disks. Why do we bother with this arrangement? (i.e., why don’t we just let clients use their local disks?) Well, primarily this setup allows for easy sharing of data across clients. Thus, if you access a file on one machine (Client 0) and then later use another (Client 2), you will have the same view of the file system. Your data is naturally shared across these different machines. A secondary benefit is a centralized administration. For example, backing up files can be done from a few server machines instead of from the multitude of clients. Another advantage could be security; having all servers in a locked machine room prevents certain types of problems from arising.
CRUX: HOW TO BUILD A DISTRIBUTED FILE SYSTEM
How do you build a distributed file system? What are the key aspects to think about? What is easy to get wrong? What can we learn from existing systems?
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