Patent ID: 6023706
Filing Date: 2000-02-08
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
In a system employing a file system for storing file data and having a file structure that includes metadata with distributed communicating computer nodes which have access to the file system, the method comprising:providing a file system with a file structure residing on one or more disks accessible by multiple file systems running on separate computer nodes, said file system allowing a computation that uses the file structure to be broken up into multiple pieces that can be run in parallel on separate ones of said computer nodes, andproviding a metadata node for each file of the file structure with a mechanism to control metadata in a distributed file system wherein every node which accesses a file and needs to read or write metadata information to the metadata node is accommodated, and wherein the metadata node keeps the information about the file's metadata and acts as a smart cache between the disk and all nodes that access the file.