Clustered file system

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A clustered file system is a file system which is simultaneously mounted on multiple servers. There are several approaches to clustering, most of which do not employ a clustered file system. While many computer clusters don't use clustered file systems, unless servers are underpinned by a clustered file system the complexity of the underlying storage environment increases as servers are added, effectively limiting these clustering styles to 3 or 4 servers for all practical purposes.

With a clustered file system this complexity is largely eliminated allowing very large numbers of servers to be clustered together. Using this approach every server has simultaneous read/write access to the files in the file system with no increase in complexity of the underlying storage infrastructure.

Scientists working at ALICE will be using a 4 Gbit/s Fibre Channel SAN with a clustered file system to store the massive amount of data generated by the experiment (estimated at 1 GB/second for a month). Reasons quoted for this choice include "performance, scalability and vendor independence"[1]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "CERN's Search for God (Particles) Drives Massive Storage Needs" (Laurianne McLaughlin, CIO, 20 July 2007). Retrieved on 2007-07-20.


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