File System Virtual Appliances: Third-Party File System Implementations Without the Pain

Abstract

File system virtual appliances (FSVAs) address a major headache faced by third-party FS developers: OS version compatibility. By packaging their FS implementation in a VM, separate from the VM that runs user applications, they can avoid the need to provide an FS port for every kernel version and OS distribution. A small FS-agnostic proxy maintained by the core OS developers, connects the FSVA to whatever kernel version the user chooses. Evaluation of prototype FSVA support in Linux, using Xen as the VM platform, demonstrates that this separation can be efficient and maintain desired OS and virtualization features. Using three existing file systems and a cooperative caching extension as a case study, we demonstrate that the FSVA architecture can insulate FS implementations from user OS differences that would otherwise require explicit porting changes.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 2008
Accession Number
ADA491071

Entities

People

  • Garth A. Gibson
  • Gregory R. Ganger
  • James Cipar
  • Matthew Wachs
  • Michael Abd-el-malek
  • Michael Reiter

Organizations

  • Carnegie Mellon University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accounting
  • Case Studies
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Computing System Architectures
  • Debugging
  • Environment
  • Hypervisors
  • Language
  • Maintenance
  • Operating Systems
  • Platforms
  • Prototypes
  • Virtual Machines
  • Virtualization

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Database Systems and Applications
  • Parallel and Distributed Computing.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Microelectromechanical Systems