Distributed network block device: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:13, 2 April 2007

Revision as of 16:15, 2 April 2007

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{{Orphan|November 2006}}

'''DNBD:A Distributed Network Block Device''' (DNBD) is a read-only and caching network

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/