AFS + Object Storage

At RZG, AFS is used since 1992.

Since 1994 a special version MR-AFS is used on the server side to allow for data-migration onto tape (actually into some underlying HSM system).

While AFS became in 2000 open source - now called OpenAFS - MR-AFS is still owned by Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center (PSC). RZG is probably the last site using MR-AFS and the only one with enough insight to maintain it.

In this situation in 2005 a new project was founded along with CERN and CASPUR to make AFS use object storage to store the files. This new technique makes it possible - like in MR-AFS - to store data outside the partition the AFS volume lives in in external object storage devices.

OpenAFS/OSD is in production at RZG since spring 2007 and has replaced MR-AFS in spring 2008. The project is still not finished completely because OpenAFS/OSD is not yet merged into the official OpenAFS source tree, but that should happen in the next years.

Information about OpenAFS/OSD can be found at http://pfanne.rzg.mpg.de/trac/openAFS-OSD

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AFS + Object Storage

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