Cost Analysis of a Distributed Video Storage System

Alice Bonhomme (1)

1 LIP - Laboratoire de l'Informatique du Parallélisme

We describe the design and the implementation of the CFS (Cluster File System) storage system which is dedicated to video streams. Our goal is to provide a system with the following features: 1) High number of supported streams at a low cost. 2) Transparent management with respect to the clients. 3) Reliability regarding data storage and service continuity. The CFS is implemented on a cluster of PCs connected with a high speed internal network. Its management is fully distributed among the cluster nodes so that there is no central component. Data are stored and retrieved among the cluster nodes using a Streaming RAID strategy, to enhance reliability. We evaluate the overhead introduced by the CFS management with respect to disk performance, by varying the number of nodes involved in file storage, the block size and the reliability level. The impact of the global server load on this overhead is moreover discussed to demonstrate scalability. As matter of fact, the overhead is between 3-15% depending on the configuration.

Mots clés: Data Striping; Performance Analysis; Reliability; Video Server

Domaines: Informatique [cs]

Alice Bonhomme. Cost Analysis of a Distributed Video Storage System. [Research Report] LIP RR-2001-23, Laboratoire de l'informatique du parallélisme. 2001, 2+14p. ⟨hal-02102072⟩