Coda: a highly available file system for a distributed workstation environment

Author

Satyanarayanan, M.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Comput. Sci., Carnegie-Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, USA

fYear

1989

fDate

27-29 Sep 1989

Firstpage

114

Lastpage

116

Abstract

A description is given of Coda, a file system for a large-scale distributed computing environment composed of Unix workstations. It provides resilience to server and network failures through the use of two distinct but complementary mechanisms. One mechanism, server replication, involves storing copies of a file at multiple servers. The other mechanism, disconnected operation, is a mode of execution in which a caching site temporarily assumes the role of a replication site. Disconnected operation is particularly useful for supporting portable workstations. The design of Coda optimizes availability and performance and provides the highest degree of consistency attainable. Measurements from a prototype show that the performance cost of providing high availability in Coda is reasonable

Keywords

Unix; computer networks; distributed processing; file servers; large-scale systems; workstations; Coda; Unix; disconnected operation; distributed workstation environment; file system; high availability; network failures; portable workstation support; server failures; server replication; Availability; Design optimization; Distributed computing; File servers; File systems; Large-scale systems; Network servers; Prototypes; Resilience; Workstations;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Workstation Operating Systems, 1989., Proceedings of the Second Workshop on

Conference_Location

Pacific Grove, CA

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WWOS.1989.109279

Filename

109279