SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MULTI-TIERED META-DATA CACHING AND DISTRIBUTION IN A CLUSTERED COMPUTER ENVIRONMENT

摘要

A system and method caches and distributes meta-data for one or more data con­tainers stored on a plurality of volumes configured as a striped volume set (SVS) and served by a plurality of nodes interconnected as a cluster. The SVS comprises one meta­ 5data volume (MDV) configured to store a canonical copy of certain meta-data, including access control lists and directories, associated with all data containers stored on the SVS, and one or more data volumes (DV) configured to store, at least, data content of those containers. In addition, for each data container stored on the SVS, one volume is desig­nated a container attribute volume (CAV) and, as such, is configured to store ("cache") a io canonical copy of certain, rapidly-changing attribute meta-data, including time stamps and container length, associated with that container.