Aaron Brown, David Oppenheimer, Kim Keeton, Randi Thomas, John Kubiatowicz,
and David A. Patterson. "ISTORE: Introspective Storage for Data-Intensive
Network Services." Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Hot Topics in
Operating Systems (HotOS-VII), Rio Rico, Arizona, March 1999.
(pdf, compressed
postscript)
Abstract:
Todays fast-growing data-intensive network services place heavy demands
on the backend servers that support them. This paper introduces ISTORE,
a novel server architecture that couples LEGO-like plug-and-play hardware
with a generic framework for constructing adaptive software that leverages
continuous self-monitoring. ISTORE exploits introspection to provide high
availability, performance, and scalability while drastically reducing the
cost and complexity of administration. An ISTORE-based server monitors
and adapts to changes in the imposed workload and to unexpected system
events such as hardware failure. This adaptability is enabled by a combination
of intelligent self-monitoring hardware components and an extensible software
framework that allows the target application to specify monitoring and
adaptation policies to the system. with the entrepreneurial nature of the
Internet, in which widely utilized, large-scale network services may be
operated by single individuals or small companies.