Robust Adaptive Network-Attached Storage

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

The basic elements of the storage industry are in the midst of radical change with the advent of network-attached storage devices. Storage systems comprised of network-attached drives provide many potential advantages over traditional storage architectures, but also introduce additional challenges, particularly regarding manageability. In this proposal, the WiND project (Wisconsin Network Disks) is described, which has the goal of developing the software techniques required to build a truly manageable network-attached storage system. The key to manageability is adaptation. In traditional systems, such adaptation is performed by a human administrator. Future storage systems must themselves adapt, and in doing so, reduce the need for manual intervention. The WiND system will gracefully and efficiently adapt to changes in the environment, reducing the burden of administration and increasing the flexibility of storage for an eclectic range of clients. In particular, WiND will automatically handle the addition of new heterogeneous disks to the system, the failure of existing disks, and changes in client workload. Within this proposal, three specific sub-areas of WiND are developed: adaptive data layout and access with SToRM, adaptive caching via Clouds, and the underlying information substrate.