File System Protocol Research Articles

A measurement study of diskless workstation traffic on an Ethernet

The traffic on a 10-Mb/s Ethernet local-area network that connects diskless workstations to file servers in a university environment is analyzed. The traffic is substantially heavier than has been recorded in previous studies; measured over 1-s intervals, it frequently exceeds 30% of the network bandwidth. The distribution of packet lengths and the patterns of packet interarrival times are interpreted for the three protocols that carry significant traffic: the transmission control protocol (character traffic), the network disk protocol (paging traffic), and the network file system protocol (remote file access traffic). The two latter protocols account for 68% of the packets and 94% of the data bytes on the network. File access to a remote file server generates bursts of traffic that can last several seconds and that demand bandwidths on the order of 120 kB/s, or about 10% of the Ethernet bandwidth. >

Internet protocol implementation experiences in PC-NFS

A team at Sun Microsystems East Coast Division has been engaged in developing and supporting a PC implementation of Sun's Network File System (NFS™) protocols. In the course of this work we were faced with the problem of implementing Internet protocol software within the PC environment. Our experiences revealed that there are some unique obstacles to be overcome in this kind of system, and indicate that further work is needed in the development of protocols to manage networks of low-end machines.

DCNA Higher Level Protocols

This paper explains a philosophy for modeling the higher level communication functions into a network architecture for heterogeneous computer networks called Data Communication Network Architecture (DCNA), the logical structure of the architecture, and several protocols based on it. To specify higher level protocols among computers of different types, DCNA defines a logical model of a computer network consisting of three submodels: the basic model, the logical network model, and the virtual network model. The basic model represents a logical view of the network resources, e.g., processing power, files, data bases, I/O devices, and a layered structure for the basic mechanisms for accessing such resources, which incorporate the concept of sublevels as well as levels. The logical network model describes the mechanisms for unified management of network resources. The virtual network model describes the mechanisms for using network resources. The. common use of network resources, by several sets of interrelated applications is made easier by treating the logical network and the virtual network separately. These models form the basis for the stipulation of higher level protocols, such as network management protocols, message transfer protocols, virtual terminal protocols, and virtual file system protocols.