An end-to-end approach to globally scalable network storage

This paper discusses the application of end-to-end design principles, which are characteristic of the architecture of the Internet, to network storage. While putting storage into the network fabric may seem to contradict end-to-end arguments, we try to show not only that there is no contradiction, but also that adherence to such an approach is the key to achieving true scalability of shared network storage. After discussing end-to-end arguments with respect to several properties of network storage, we describe the Internet Backplane Protocol and the exNode, which are tools that have been designed to create a network storage substrate that adheres to these principles. The name for this approach is Logistical Networking, and we believe its use is fundamental to the future of truly scalable communication.

[1]  Jim Waldo,et al.  A Note on Distributed Computing , 1996, Mobile Object Systems.

[2]  K. Moore,et al.  Scalable Networked Information Processing Environment (SNIPE) , 1997, ACM/IEEE SC 1997 Conference (SC'97).

[3]  Sean Quinlan,et al.  Venti: A New Approach to Archival Storage , 2002, FAST.

[4]  Jerome H. Saltzer,et al.  Active Networking and End-To-End Arguments* , 1998 .

[5]  James S. Plank.  A tutorial on Reed-Solomon coding for fault-tolerance in RAID-like systems , 1997 .

[6]  Micah Beck,et al.  The Internet2 Distributed Storage Infrastructure Project: An Architecture for Internet Content Channels , 1998, Comput. Networks.

[7]  Jack B. Dennis,et al.  Programming semantics for multiprogrammed computations , 1966, CACM.

[8]  Robert Morris,et al.  Chord: A scalable peer-to-peer lookup service for internet applications , 2001, SIGCOMM 2001.

[9]  Alessandro Bassi,et al.  Managing Data Storage in the Network , 2001, IEEE Internet Comput..

[10]  Richard W. Watson,et al.  The parallel I/O architecture of the high-performance storage system (HPSS) , 1995, Proceedings of IEEE 14th Symposium on Mass Storage Systems.

[11]  Mark Handley,et al.  A scalable content-addressable network , 2001, SIGCOMM 2001.

[12]  Alessandro Bassi,et al.  Mobile management of network files , 2001, Proceedings Third Annual International Workshop on Active Middleware Services.

[13]  Garth A. Gibson,et al.  RAID: high-performance, reliable secondary storage , 1994, CSUR.

[14]  Jason Cox,et al.  Resource Cataloging and Distribution System , 1997 .

[15]  Dinesh C. Verma,et al.  Content Distribution Networks: An Engineering Approach , 2001 .

[16]  Jerome H. Saltzer,et al.  End-to-end arguments in system design , 1984, TOCS.

[17]  Mahadev Satyanarayanan,et al.  Andrew: a distributed personal computing environment , 1986, CACM.

[18]  Alden W. Jackson,et al.  Commentaries on "Active networking and end-to-end arguments" , 1998, IEEE Netw..