Using high speed networks to enable distributed parallel image server systems

We describe the design and implementation of a distributed parallel storage system that uses high-speed ATM networks as a key element of the architecture. Other elements include a collection of network-based disk block servers, and an associated name server that provides some file system functionality. The implementation is based on user level software that runs on UNIX workstations. Both the architecture and the implementation are intended to provide for easy and economical scalability. This approach has yielded a data source that scales economically to very high speed. Target applications include online storage for both very large images and video sequences. This paper describes the architecture, and explores the performance issues of the current implementation.