Chan Chung Hang Christopher wrote:
> Alan McKay wrote:
>> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 7:48 PM, Christopher Chan
>> <
christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk> wrote:
>>> A cluster filesystem
>> OK, but you've just given me a circular definition.
>>
>>> When you do not need/want a cluster file system
>> and again ...
>>
>
> Okay, a cluster/distributed file system that does not have its own on
> disk format. It makes use of whatever existing filesystem there is for
> actual storage and allows you to replicate files/load balance requests
> to files to 'storage servers' of any supported platform.
>
> At the same time, user level processes on 'clients' access the system as
> if it was an actual file system.
>
> This enables one to have Linux clients that run say samba to export the
> files to Windows clients but the actual files are kept on OpenSolaris
> servers on zfs. Should the Linux clients all go down, the Windows
> clients could still access the files on the OpenSolaris servers via samba.