Swarm: Agent-based storage

Scott Baker, John H. Hartman, Ian Murdock

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Swarm is a scalable, modular storage system that uses agents to customize low-level storage functions to meet the needs of high-level services. Agents influence low-level storage functions such as data layout, metadata management, and crash recovery. An agent is a program that is attached to data in the storage system and invoked when particular events occur during the data's lifetime. For example, when Swarm needs to write data to disk, agents attached to the data are invoked to determine a layout policy. Agents can be persistent, so that they remain attached to the data they manage until the data are deleted; this allows agents to continue to affect how the data are handled long after the application or storage service that created the data has terminated. In this paper, we present Swarm's agent architecture, describe the types of agents that Swarm supports and the infrastructure used to support them, and discuss their performance overhead and security implications. We describe how several storage services and applications use agents, and the benefits they derive from doing so.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice, SERP'04
EditorsH.R. Arabnia, H. Reza
Pages483-489
Number of pages7
StatePublished - 2004
EventProceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice, SERP'04 - Las Vegas, NV, United States
Duration: Jun 21 2004Jun 24 2004

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice, SERP'04
Volume2

Other

OtherProceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice, SERP'04
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityLas Vegas, NV
Period6/21/046/24/04

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Engineering

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