The InterMezzo File System Peter J. Braam,
[email protected] Carnegie Mellon University & Stelias Computing Michael Callahan,
[email protected] The Roda Group Phil Schwan,
[email protected] Stelias Computing Abstract To keep our project modest, we are first targeting the project of online directory Is it possible to implement a distributed file replication on a system area network, allowing system, retaining some of the advanced for network and system failures. This exposes protocol features of systems like Coda, while many of the subsystems needed, but leaves getting an implementation that is an order of some others aside. However, our paper magnitude simpler? We claim the answer is describes the broader design issues, parts of “yes”, and InterMezzo is well on its way which will be implemented and likely modified towards being a prototype of such a system. in the process of bringing InterMezzo forward. The key design decisions were to exploit local file systems as server storage and as a client The code for InterMezzo will soon be available cache and make the kernel file system driver a at http://www.inter-mezzo.org. wrapper around a local file system. We use a rich, high level language and work with Acknowledgements: The authors thank the asynchronous completion instead of threads. other members of the Coda project for fruitful Finally, we rely on existing infrastructure, such discussions. This research was supported by as TCP. This is in contrast with systems like the Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) under Coda and AFS, which implement their entire DARPA contract number F19628-96-C-0061.