AllocFS: A Filesystem With Allocations | The Cooperative Computing Lab

Space allocation is a critical facility for making reliable data intensive computing systems. However, traditional operating systems do not make it easy to guarantee that space will be available for a future operation.

To address this limitation, we have developed AllocFS , a filesystem that allows users to make guaranteed space allocations within an existing directory structure. For example, the user simply issues mkalloc /dir/name 25M and receives a directory that is guaranteed to hold 25MB of data. Allocations are hierarchical, so this space can be further divided for other purposes.

AllocFS is a modified version of the production ext2 filesystem. It is a loadable kernel module that uses the same on-disk layout as ext2, so the allocation facility can be added to (or removed from) an existing filesystem without reformatting.

Software

Related Publications

Operating System Support for Space Allocation in Grid Storage Systems

Douglas Thain

In IEEE Grid Computing, 2006

doi: 10.1109/ICGRID.2006.311004

DOI Bib PDF

@inproceedings{alloc-grid06,
  author = {Thain, Douglas},
  title = {{Operating System Support for Space Allocation in Grid Storage Systems}},
  booktitle = {{IEEE Grid Computing}},
  pages = {104-111},
  year = {2006},
  note = {{doi: 10.1109/ICGRID.2006.311004}},
  doi = {10.1109/ICGRID.2006.311004},
  cclpaperid = {41},
  keywords = {chirp, allocfs, filesystems, career, gridfs},
}

Separating Abstractions from Resources in a Tactical Storage System

Douglas Thain, Sander Klous, Justin Wozniak, Paul Brenner, Aaron Striegel, and Jesus Izaguirre

In IEEE/ACM Supercomputing, 2005

doi: 10.1109/SC.2005.64

DOI Bib PDF

@inproceedings{tactical-sc05,
  author = {Thain, Douglas and Klous, Sander and Wozniak, Justin and Brenner, Paul and Striegel, Aaron and Izaguirre, Jesus},
  title = {{Separating Abstractions from Resources in a Tactical Storage System}},
  booktitle = {{IEEE/ACM Supercomputing}},
  pages = {55-67},
  year = {2005},
  note = {{doi: 10.1109/SC.2005.64}},
  doi = {10.1109/SC.2005.64},
  cclpaperid = {52},
  keywords = {parrot, chirp, allocfs, filesystems, career, hecura, gridfs},
}