A distributed file system server for networked multiprocessor workstations
See-Mong Tan · 1989
This dissertation presents a new distributed file system server for contemporary high-performance workstations comprised of multi-microprocessor microcomputers connected in a local area network. The motivation for and requirement of the distributed file system server is to provide remote storage of large amounts of data to workstations connected to it via a communication network and to facilitate data and file sharing among autonomous workstations. These concepts have been embedded in the BIGSAM Distributed File System Server project. This file system server is highly reliable and transparent and designed to support a distributed database system. Particular attention is paid to atomicity, replication, distributed file access, concurrency control, and failure detection and recovery. Performance is enhanced by using different design models. Semantics and specifications for a current implementation of the BIGSAM Distributed File System Server are presented to further illustrate design principles for a distributed file system server in a distributed operating system environment. Major results of this research are the design and implementation of: a more efficient two-phase commit transaction protocol; a lower cost two-site random control and synchronization protocol to maintain mutual consistency of files; and a combined high availability and high integrity failure recovery protocol.