The SCARLETT European Research Project has the goal to define, develop and validate the concepts of the next generation of IMA (IMA2G). Enhanced File Management capability is central to support next generation IMA Platform properties and the increasing usage of memory mass storage. IMA2G Applications require access to data stored on mass memory independent from their physical location across the Platform; Platform-wide File Services are required.
We provide, in the framework of the SCARLETT project, a distributed approach to File Management, which meets the IMA2G requirements. The proposed design aims to move from a module-centric File Management, typical in IMA1G, to a Platform-centric File Management based on a distributed file stack.
After examining existing IMA standard solutions concerning File Management, an overview of the ‘Platform File Management’ architecture is given. We present and discuss the key design drivers: a distributed approach, localization, the communication protocol between File Clients and File Servers, IMA1G compatibility and reuse, replication and linked error handling aspects, health monitoring, management of write access and network topology considerations. A demo implementation is described.