Title: Implementation of a stackable file system for real-time network backup

Authors: Satoshi Nishimura, Mutsuo Sano, Katsuo Ikeda

Addresses: Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka Institute of Technology, 1-79-1, Kitayama, Hirakata-shi, Osaka, Japan. ' Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Osaka Institute of Technology, 1-79-1, Kitayama, Hirakata-shi, Osaka, Japan. ' Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Osaka Institute of Technology, 1-79-1, Kitayama, Hirakata-shi, Osaka, Japan

Abstract: We propose a backup system based on a stackable mirroring file system, general-purpose mirroring file system (GMFS). This file system mirrors data in real-time on the file system layer. It uses the typical network file system (NFS) and backs up data to one or more NFS servers. Therefore, an existing empty resource can be used. It is necessary to backup data to two or more servers in case a backup server fails. Moreover, the throughput of read and write operations has been improved by adopting a method of calling a system function inside NFS. Experimental results shows that the throughput of read and write operations of GMFS is 2.4 times faster than that of conventional mirroring file systems. In addition, even when the number of backup servers increases, the decrease in throughput is small.

Keywords: file systems; real-time backup; network mirroring; replication; Linux; network file systems; NFS; stackable mirroring files.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAC.2010.037515

International Journal of Autonomic Computing, 2010 Vol.1 No.4, pp.408 - 424

Published online: 15 Dec 2010 *

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