Distributed Caching in Networked File Systems

Changing relative performance of processors, networks, and disks makes it necessary to reconsider algorithms using these three resources. As networks get faster and less congested topologies emerge, it becomes important to use network resources more aggressively to obtain good performance. Substitution of local disk accesses by accesses to remote memory can lead to better balanced resource usage and thus to faster systems. In this work we address the issue of file caching in a networked file system configuration. Distributed block-level in-memory caches are considered. We show that carefully constructed distributed concepts can lead to lower server load and better overall system performance than centralized concepts. Oversimplification, although aimed at gaining performance for single components, may deteriorate overall performance as a result of unbalanced resource usage.