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DA5. Advancements in File Systems

Statement

Discuss a current advance in file systems

Solution

  • One of the advancements that are worthy of checking is Object-based file systems, where the blocks have been replaced by objects.
  • According to (Symantec, 2018), Object-based file systems (also known as Object Storage Devices or OSD) provide more scalability, performance, and security than traditional file systems.
  • Some Objects in OSD characteristics are (Symantec, 2018):
    • Objects are like files in traditional file systems, but objects have variable lengths (unlike blocks in traditional file systems, which have fixed lengths).
    • Objects are organized under partition keys (unlike files in traditional file systems, which are organized under directories).
    • Security permissions are assigned to individual objects (unlike files in traditional file systems, which are assigned to directories or even the entire system or disk).
    • Operations in OSD include: Read object, Write object, Delete object, List objects, and List partitions (unlike traditional file systems, which include operations such as: Read block, Write block, and format).
  • Saving data in objects have a different way of retrieving; instead of OS having to provide the exact location of data blocks in each request; the OS only supplies the object partition key; then the OSD will retrieve that object.
  • Objects are saved on the OSD device in one continuous block of data, so, knowing only the partition key is enough to retrieve the object.
  • Internally, the location of the object may change over time (especially when the object is updated), but the partition key will always be the same; and the OSD will always be able to retrieve the object.
  • OSD is used in some of the new examples of NO-SQL databases, such as DynamoDB of AWS.
  • The most famous example of OSD is Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), which is a cloud storage service that provides object storage through a web service interface.

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