DATA FILE HANDLING IN A NETWORK ENVIRONMENT AND INDEPENDENT FILE SERVER

摘要

According to one embodiment, an independent file server connected to a wide area network (WAN) includes local file storage, a file system comprising information about directory structures, path, and file names of other file systems of other file servers connected to the WAN, and a deduplication module configured to communicate with other deduplication modules of other file servers connected to the WAN, perform data deduplication of data objects stored locally in the local file storage, and create and maintain a deduplication table mapping data chunks of locally stored data objects to identification characteristics and storage location in the local file storage, and construction plans of data files including locations of data chunks within the data files. Other systems, methods, and computer program products are presented according to more embodiments.

主权项

1. A method for data file handling in a network environment, the method comprising:
receiving a request at a remote file server to read a data file located in a local the storage of a corresponding home file server; transmitting a request from the remote file server to the home file server for a first complete list of identification characteristics pertaining to the data file; creating the first complete list of identification characteristics for the data file in the home file server; transmitting the first complete list of identification characteristics from the home file server to the remote file server; creating a first list of missing identification characteristics in the remote file server by comparing the first complete list of identification characteristics with identification characteristics of data chunks of a deduplication table and determining missing, identification characteristics of the data file in the remote file server; transmitting the first list of missing identification characteristics from the remote file server to the home file server; transmitting data chunks pertaining to the first list of missing identification characteristics from the home file server to the remote file server; reconstructing the requested data file in the remote file server based on the first complete list of identification characteristics and location of data chunks within the data file; and providing access to the requested data file in the remote file server.