Patent ID: 6418519
Filing Date: 2002-07-09
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
An article of manufacture, comprising:at least one computer usable medium having computer readable program code means embodied therein for storing data in a distributed processing system having multiple processors, one processor being a client node and one or more other processors each being a server node, each server node having at least one storage tape associated therewith, the computer readable program code means in the article of manufacture comprising: (i) computer readable program code means for causing a computer to write blocks of data from a client process of the client node to a first storage tape of a first server node, said writing continuing until all blocks of data to be stored by said client process are written to said first storage tape or a physical end of storage is reached for the first storage tape, wherein said physical end of storage is reached without size of said first storage tape having been predetermined; (ii) computer readable program code means for causing a computer to switch writing blocks of data from said client node to a second storage tape of a second server node if the physical end of storage is reached for the first storage tape, wherein the switching writing is transparent to the client process; and (iii) wherein the writing of blocks of data from the client process of the client node to the first storage medium and to the second storage medium comprises a write-behind operation which may fail, wherein said failure is transparent to the client process due to said transparent switching writing from the first storage tape to the second storage tape, and wherein said first server node and said second server node periodically notify the client node whether previously received blocks of data have been correctly written to the first storage tape or the second storage tape, respectively.