Clue tables: a distributed, dynamic-binding naming mechanism
Cheng‐Zen Yang, Chih‐Chung Chen, Yen‐Jen Oyang · 1994
This paper presents a distributed, dynamic naming mechanism called clue tables for building highly scalable, highly available distributed file systems. The clue tables naming mechanism is distinctive in three aspects. First, it is designed to cope well with the hierarchical structure of the modern large-scale computer networks. Second, it implicitly carries out load balancing among servers to improve system scalability. Third, it supports file replication and dynamically designates a primary copy to resolve possible data inconsistency. This paper also reports a performance evaluation of the clue tables mechanism when compared with NFS, a popular distributed file system. 1 Introduction Distributed file systems are the backbone of the modern network computing environment. The naming mechanism in a distributed file system maps the logical name of each individual file to its physical location. In the design of a modern distributed file system, availability and scalability are two essenti...