File Systems and File Management

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The Abstracts

The File Systems Evolution
Christian Bandulet
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File Systems impose structure on the address space of one or more physical or virtual devices. Starting with local file systems over time additional file systems appeared focusing on specialized requirements such as data sharing, remote file access, distributed file access, parallel files access, HPC, archiving, security etc.. Due to the dramatic growth of unstructured data files as the basic units for data containers are morphing into file objects providing more semantics and feature-rich capabilities for content processing. This presentation will categorize and explain the basic principles of currently available file systems (e.g. local FS, shared FS, SAN FS, clustered FS, network FS, WAFS, distributed FS, parallel FS, object FS, ...). It will also explain technologies like NAS aggregation, NAS clustering, scalable NFS, global namespace, parallel NFS, storage grids and cloud storage. All of these files system categories are complementary. They will be enhanced in parallel with additional value added functionality. New file system architectures will be developed and some of them will be blended in the future.

Learning Objectives:

Understand the basic principles of different files system architectures
Understand how file systems evolved over time
Being prepared to discuss, position and recommend the most appropriate file system for a customer solution

Find and Select the Right File Storage for your Applications
Philippe Nicolas
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Many businesses are linked to file storage technologies as many of these new, recent and even existing applications morph now, rely and support file based data. At the same time, the volume of data explodes especially the file data type which now represents by far the larger portion of enterprise data. With the complexity and variety of market solutions, the challenge for IT buyers and storage managers is to choose and adopt the most adapted solutions aligned to their business and IT needs to address their current and future challenges with a special attention to compliance and data retention regulations, Backup and Archiving, ILM and Tiering. This session covers the most common deployed applications, their attributes in term of file storage needs and maps these to file storage solutions available in the industry with technologies details and advantages. Various technologies are presented in this session, among them: Clustered, SAN-based, Distributed, Parallel File Storage and the very last approach Cloud Storage.

Learning Objectives:

The presented survey, technologies segmentation and features matrix, helps end users, IT and file storage buyers to select, choose and adopt the right solution
And finally this content contributes to the promotion of file storage technologies in an agnostic philosophy
With a top-down approach, this tutorial improves file storage technologies positioning and understanding aligned to applications needs and challenges

Object-based file systems: an Overview
Craig Harmer
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Object Storage Devices (OSDs), an emerging technology standardized by INCITS/ANSI T10 with the cooperation of the SNIA, have been well-publicized, and storage systems that incorporate them are available in the market. OSDs enable more scalable storage systems, massive throughput, and at the same time, enhance data security. To fully deliver on their promise, however, they must be integrated into a file system that provides a usable namespace. This tutorial will briefly review the properties of OSDs, and describe how these new properties are used to re-architect traditional file system designs to provide scaling, resiliency, and cost benefits compared to traditional file systems.

Learning Objectives:

Appreciate the differences between OSD and conventional disk storage devices
Understand the potential for OSD-based storage systems
Understand the state of the practice in delivering secure, scalable, resilient OSD-based file storage to end users

Global Namespaces For Summer
Matthew Geddes
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Distributed filesystems and global namespaces are becoming a more common genus in the enterprise ecology. Using the Microsoft DFS species as an example, we''ll explore the generic concepts behind these creatures and dissect the DFS species to help us understand some of the specifics.

Learning Objectives:

A solid understanding of distributed filesystems and global namespaces from a high level
An understanding of the important and relevant exchanges in the DFS protocol specifically and how this relates to the enterprise
Some generic use cases for distributed filesystems