Meta NFS:
The Systems Group has 10's of NFS file servers. Currently, AutoMount
Daemon (amd) is used to enable any of our workstations to mount and
access any of the servers. It would be much nicer if we had a
replacement for AMD that made the myriad of servers appear as though
it was one monster file system. It would automatically balance the
placement of files among the servers so the user no longer has to
worry about which file server has free space etc. It would mean that
we could have a sensible directory hierarchy and naming scheme that
wasn't forced to reflect where the data is actually located, as it
does now.
This project requires plenty of good distributed systems stuff (e.g.
electing a master, atomic updates of meta-filesystem state etc.), and
doesn't require any kernel hacking -- it can all be done in user
space. It would also be really useful thing to have.
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