| Technology Overview |
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| The software is a distributed application consisting of a number of basic components. The software operates in a "look aside" mode whereby it does not reside in the data path between application and underlying file system access. The following is a brief overview of each component: |
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| High Level Technology Overview |
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| Policy Engine (Server) |
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Clients |
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| The policy engine houses the central database, which acts as a "central air traffic controller" for all file system resources. The policy engine is responsible for ensuring that the collection of file systems adheres to a company's business logic, policies, and budgets. |
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A client is simply any machine that uses one of the interfaces (GUI, CLI, or XML-RPC) to interact with other application components. |
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| File System Monitors |
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Data Portal |
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| The file system monitors are responsible for 1) executing commands requested by clients or the policy engine, and 2) periodically monitoring each individual file system for conformance. The file system monitors can reside on the Policy Engine or can be distributed to each file system machine. |
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The data portal provides the file system abstraction (or virtualization) enabling a global namespace for file system navigation, i.e. "/jobs" The data portal can reside on any unix file system. On Windows clients a local copy is maintained on each Windows machine. |
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