AFS - Andrew File System

By: Christine Martz

Meaning of AFS – “Andrew File System”, is an implementation of distributed networked file system developed by Carnegie Mellon University. AFS is a global file system and directories worldwide become available to a user with access to a host with an AFS client installed. AFS is used in acadamia and in scientific labs around the world.

All AFS sites have their own AFS cell. The cell usually named after the institution or a research group that administers it. For example, CERN's AFS cell is called cern.ch and NASA's AFS cell is called jpl.nasa.gov. All systems that take part in the AFS file system have the same view of the file system.

AFS was developed originally at Carnegie Mellon University. It has since been further developed, maintained and marketed by the Transarc Corporation in Pittsburgh, an IBM subsidiary. Most of Andrew File System has recently been released by IBM as Open Source.

Other Related Definitions:

“… AFS is similar to the more widely used Network File System but is considered more robust and secure. AFS is technologically really quite beautiful, but it never caught on commercially. IBM is not giving up all that much by turning this over to open-source.” [Tony Iams - D. H. Brown Associates Inc.]

“… AFS is used mainly in academic and government markets but also has users in the financial industry. The system will work with most versions of Unix and with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT.” [Computer World]

“…AFS, however, goes one step further by freeing users from having to know exactly which server a file is stored on. Because AFS uses a central database to keep track of the locations of all its files, system administrators can easily add new servers or storage and move files around without leaving users confused. ” [Gail Koerner - IBM's Transarc]

“…The Andrew File System (AFS) is a distributed network file system that enables files from any AFS machine across the country to be accessed as easily as files stored locally.” [Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center ]

Related Links:

What is AFS? - OpenAFS Overview.
AFS Reference Page - List of AFS tools, links, and resources.
AFS Overview - AFS Description.

Technical Resources:

AFS Administration Guide - Administrator's Guide for the Andrew File System.
AFS Administration Reference - Administration Reference for the Andrew File System..
The Andrew File System - Configuring your AFS environment.

Products and Solutions:

OpenAFS 1.2.13 Release
OpenAFS Source Code

Blogs, News, Feeds, Discussion Lists:

Technical discussion related to ongoing development work on OpenAFS
General discussion of OpenAFS

Books About:

Managing AFS : The Andrew File System - by Richard Campbell.
An overview of the Andrew file system - by John H Howard
Synchronization and caching issues in the Andrew file system - by Michael Leon Kazar. 

See Also:

Other AFS Related Resources

 

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