The ITC Distributed File System: Principles and Design
M. Satyanarayanan, J.H. Howard, D.A. Nichols, R.N. Sidebotham, A.Z. Spector,
M.J. West
Abstract
This paper presents the design and rationale of a distributed file system
for a network of more than 5000 personal computer workstations. While scale
has been the dominant design influence, careful attention has also been
paid to the goals of location transparency, user mobility and compatibility
with existing operating system interfaces. Security is an important design
consideration, and the mechanisms for it do not assume that the workstations
or the network are secure. Caching of entire files at workstations is a
key element in this design. A prototype of this system has been built and
is in use by a user community of about 400 individuals. A refined implementation
that will scale more gracefully and provide better performance is close
to completion.