Prefix Tables: A Simple Mechanism for Locating Files in a Distributed System

Abstract

Prefix tables provide a mechanism for locating files in a system whose storage is distributed among many servers. The result is a single file system hierarchy visible uniformly and transparently to all clients. Each client of the filesystem maintains a local prefix table that identifies the server for a file based on the initial part of the file name. Prefix tables are built and modified using a simple broadcast protocol that is flexible enough to allow dynamic server reconfiguration and a simple form of replication.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 03, 1985
Accession Number
ADA611774

Entities

People

  • Brent Welch
  • John Ousterhout

Organizations

  • University of California, Berkeley

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • California
  • Classification
  • Computer Access Control
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Data Storage Systems
  • Directories
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Engineering
  • Hierarchies
  • Instruction Set Architecture
  • Networks
  • Operating Systems
  • Reliability
  • Servers (Computer Hardware)
  • System Software

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Parallel and Distributed Computing.
  • Regression Analysis.