On Wed, 17 May 2006 11:51:52 +0200, Andersen
wrote:

>
>Are all files on NFS stored on one central server? Or is is possible to
>distribute the load on different servers? If so, which version supports
>that?

It's possible to distribute file systems across multiple NFS servers
and use a namespace of some type. The most popular namespace is
automounter but it could be any of the newer products as well; Acopia,
Neoscale, Rainstorage, etc.

An example is:

/nfs/looks_like_one_fs/

But under that there are multiple directories that are each their own
file system exported from seperate NFS servers but coalesced into one
path structure by a namespace.
Of course this usually means users will not be able to create anything
under looks_like_one_fs directly but rather in the dir's below it.

Hope this helps.

~F

On Sun, 21 May 2006 02:24:32 GMT, Faeandar
wrote:

>On Wed, 17 May 2006 11:51:52 +0200, Andersen
> wrote:
>
>>
>>Are all files on NFS stored on one central server? Or is is possible to
>>distribute the load on different servers? If so, which version supports
>>that?
>
>It's possible to distribute file systems across multiple NFS servers
>and use a namespace of some type. The most popular namespace is
>automounter but it could be any of the newer products as well; Acopia,
>Neoscale, Rainstorage, etc.
>
>An example is:
>
>/nfs/looks_like_one_fs/
>
>But under that there are multiple directories that are each their own
>file system exported from seperate NFS servers but coalesced into one
>path structure by a namespace.
>Of course this usually means users will not be able to create anything
>under looks_like_one_fs directly but rather in the dir's below it.
>
>Hope this helps.
>
>~F

If you are referring to something like Microsoft's DFS for NFS then
you'll have to wait for NFS v4. v3 does not have, to my knowledge, a
redirect capability.

~F