BIFS: a filing system for multiprocessor based systems

This paper describes the design philosophy of a filing system for use within multiprocessor based architectures. The need for such a facility arises from the limited amount of memory available to individual nodes in non-shared memory multiprocessors, such as networks of transputers. However the provision of a centralized filing system introduces an obvious bottleneck. The aim of the project is to develop a system that will be flexible, portable and as efficient as is possible within the constraints imposed by the target topologies and the bottleneck. As the paper is intended to provide an overview of the BIFS system, it does not contain a detailed technical description of the implementation.