Management of Replicated Volume Location Data in the Ficus Replicated File System

Existing techniques to provide name transparency in distributed le systems have been designed for modest scale systems, and do not readily extend to very large con gurations. This paper details the approach which is now operational in the Ficus replicated Unix ling environment, and shows how it di ers from other methods currently in use. The Ficus mechanism permits optimistic management of the volume location data by exploiting the existing directory reconciliation algorithms which merge directory updates made during network partition.