jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) (05/01/91)
(Note: It's comp.unix.programmer, not comp.unix.programmers.) (Note2: Note the Followup-To.) The Andrew File System (AFS) does two things which seem specifically pertinent to what you're trying to do. First of all, it allows you to create multiple read-only backup volumes of a volume of files, and any access to the files in the volume will be balanced over the various backup volumes, thus distributing the load of reading the files. Second, it keeps a local cache of AFS files on every workstation. Often-used files get copied into the local cache and then stay there. Subsequent accesses to those files are as fast as accesses to files on the local disk. There have been several papers presented at various Usenix conferences about making NFS do mirroring and stuff like that. The Summary 1990 conference had at least one paper of this sort. So if you really want to do this with NFS, see if you can find someone where you work who has old proceedings from Usenix conferences, and ask to see them (or contact Usenix and ask if you can purchase relavant proceedings). However, if I were you, I'd consider using AFS instead. You can probably get the "standard blurb" about AFS by sending mail to info-afs-request@transarc.com. -- Jonathan Kamens USnail: MIT Project Athena 11 Ashford Terrace jik@Athena.MIT.EDU Allston, MA 02134 Office: 617-253-8085 Home: 617-782-0710