Distributed Path Selection for Storage Networks
Petra Berenbrink, André Brinkmann, Christian Scheideler · 2000
In the last couple of years a dramatic growth of data storage capacity can be observed. To manage the explosion of data, a common approach is to combine storage devices into a dedicated network, called storage area network. One of the major requirements for these networks is scalability. Existing concepts often lack scalability either because they are based on central components, or because the routing cannot handle large or irregular topologies efficiently. In a project at the Paderborn University, we are currently developing concepts for storage area networks ensuring that every function is performed in a completely distributed way. In this paper, we concentrate on our routing concepts. We present a completely distributed path selection algorithm called DPS that is applicable to arbitrary network topologies. Surprisingly, this algorithm does not need any information about the topology of the network and, although very simple, is able to compute paths that provably reach a best possi...