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#REDIRECT [[Network block device]]
{{Orphan|November 2006}}
A Distributed Network Block Device (DNBD) is a read-only and caching network
block device and supports following main features:
* replication of [[servers]] for robustness
* multicast communication and [[caching]] of network traffic for [[scalability]]
These characteristics make it suitable especially for use in [[wireless networks]],
e.g. for diskless clients or to share multimedia files in such an environment.
The servers can export a file or block device equipped with an operating system,
movies, music, etc. Several clients can import the block device and access it
like a local [[hard disk]]. However, each block transfer over the network can be
cached by all clients: If several users on each client start to watch a movie
within a certain time interval, the movie data has to be transmitted only once
(depending on the [[cache]] size). The network is not burdened with unnecessary
traffic.
DNBD can be used together with [[cowloop]] [1] or [[unionfs]] [2] in order to get local
write [[semantics]], e.g. for diskless clients. Especially in wireless environments
with limited [[bandwidth]], caching can increase [[boot-up]] time enormously.
Webpage: https://sourceforge.net/projects/dnbd/
Mailing List: dnbd-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
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