An Empirical Study of a Wide-Area Distributed File
System
M. Spasojevic and M. Satyanarayanan
Abstract
The evolution of the Andrew File System (AFS) into a wide-area distributed
file system has encouraged collaboration and information dissemination
on a much broader scale than ever before. In this paper, we examine AFS
as a provider of wide-area file services to over a hundred organizations
around the world. We discuss usage characteristics of AFS derived from
empirical measurements of the system. Our observations indicate that AFS
provides robust and efficient data access in its current configuration,
thus confirming its viability as a design point for wide-area distributed
file systems.