File System and Storage

T

he easy access to high-performance computing resources in cloud computing has not only

made the process-intensive activities smarter but the data-intensive computing activities

also have taken center stage. The nature of data have radically changed with this revolutionary

utility service; hence their processing and storage requirements vary. Large data-sets are

generated and produced everyday are sent for processing in the high-performance computing

environments.

Like the traditional storages, users can store and access multimedia files of various formats

like text, image, audio and video in cloud also, but the storage requirements have been altered

for efficient processing of the large data-sets which are produced in cloud every hour. The

traditional enterprise level files and data storage systems were not sufficient to satisfy all of the

data-intensive and high-performance computing requirements.

Efficient file handling to support parallel and distributed operations of large data-sets

needed an entirely new file system format. Hence, researchers and computing vendors have

come up with suitable storage solutions to achieve optimal performance in cloud like high

performance environment. This chapter focuses on all of these advancements made to fulfill

those requirements.

Cloud computing promises high-performance. Hence, the file system and storage to support

high-performance data processing are critical requirements of cloud environment.