Abstract
Purchase PDF (1124 K)
E-mail Article
Add to my Quick Links
Cited By in Scopus (0)
Purchase PDF (877 K)
doi:10.1016/0164-1212(92)90021-B 
Copyright © 1992 Published by Elsevier Science Inc.
PASS—A multiuser parallel file system based on microcomputers
Available online 10 June 2003.
References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article.
Abstract
As computer applications have become more sophisticated, they have become data intensive. Such applications suffer from inadequate use of parallelism for processing data stored on secondary storage devices. Devices such as data base machines are useful in some applications, but many applications are too small or specialized to use data base machine technology. To bridge this gap, we have introduced the parallel secondary storage (PASS) system. PASS is based on a network of microcomputers. The individual microcomputers are assigned to a unit of secondary storage and the operations of the microcomputers are initiated and monitored by a control processor. The file system is capable of acting as either an SIMD or an MIMD machine depending, on the file type. Communication between the individual microcomputers and the control processor is described. The integration of the multiple microcomputers into the primitive operations on a file is examined. Finally, the strategies employed to enhance performance in the multiprogramming environment are discussed.
