Distributed File System

Many people have two trays on their desk, an in tray and an out tray. The in tray holds all the work that is pending for your purview. Many a persons desk has multiple in-trays as one tray doesn’t cut it. Still others have a pile of paper as high as a mountain in their in tray.

Many of the items in your in tray do not need any action to be taken by you at this particular time; sure, they will require your attention at a later time. As these items are not being cleared from your in tray in a timely basis, you will keep looking at that item and tossing it back into the end of your in tray, thus recycling that task over and over again, and wasting precious time in the process.

If you suffer from this sort of situation on a regular basis, you should consider using a “Bring To Front” filing system. Let me explain how this works. You will need many file folders, one for each day of the month, and one for each month, so you would need 31 plus 12, i.e. 43 folders. Label each folder with the appropriate date or month, and arrange them in order.

Now whenever you get something in your in tray that you need to do on a later date, simply put that piece of paper into the appropriate folder in your “Bring To Front” filing system. On each new day of the month, move the folder with the current date up front, and take out all the tasks you have inserted there, and act on them.
Now you don’t have to see a huge pile of paper in your in tray, and you can save time by not re-processing your in tray needlessly,

At the end of the month, take out all the scraps and job instructions there and distribute them among the files numbered 1-31. Then move the month folder to the back, ready for next year. And once you have done this, your life will get better organized.

In the Linux systems, the ext2 (short for second extended file system) is used extensively by numerous users. The Ext2 is very efficient when dealing with real large disk partitions. In addition, when the ext2 is mounted then all the information that is stored in the disk data structures is copied into the RAM of the system. Because of this, the Linux kernel is able to avoid numerous disk read operations. However, as nothing is perfect in this world the ext2, too, is prone to corruption. In such cases, you should perform in-built methods to remove corruption and mount file system. However, in case you are unable to fix the problem then you should use a third-party Linux data recovery software to perform data recovery for Linux system.

Let us take an example. Consider a scenario wherein you have a Linux system having ext2-based file system. In this, when you try to mount the file system after a power outage you are unable to do so. An error message is displayed, that is:

“mount: wrong file system type, bad option, bad superblock, “

Cause:

Such problems in mounting file system can occur due to corrupt ext2 especially the superblock.

Resolution:

To recover the problem of corrupt superblock, you should perform the following steps:

1) Search the superblock for the /dev/sda2 location.

2) Try to restore using alternate superblock #xxx

Here, xxx is the location of the alternate superblock.

3) Now, try to mount the file system using the following command:

# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt

4) Try to mount the file system and check the files to see whether they are intact or not.

Such workarounds would be able to fix the superblock and you would be able to access it again. However, if the method does not succeed then you should use a third-party ext2 recovery software to recover the inaccessible data from the system. These Linux recovery tools have rich user interface that do not overwrite the existing file while scanning the storage media. Also, the use of fast and sophisticated scanning algorithms ensures that the Ext2 recovery is safe and secure.

One such Linux recovery software is Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery that restores lost, deleted, or formatted data from inaccessible Linux systems. Specifically designed for ext2, ext3, ext4, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12, this ext3 recovery software is supported by various Linux distributions such as Red Hat, SUSE, Debian,, Sorcerer, TurboLinux, Caldera, Gentoo, Mandrake, Slackware etc. Compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000, this ext4 recovery utility recovers data from SCSI, SATA, EIDE, and IDE.

A Distributed File System (DFS) is a file structure that facilitates sharing of data files and resources by means of consistent storage across a network. The earliest file servers were designed in the 1970s. Following its inception in 1985, Sun’s Network File System (NFS) eventually became the foremost commonly used distributed file system. Aside from NFS, significantly distributed file systems are Common Internet File System (CIFS) and Andrew file system (AFS).

The DFS or Microsoft Distributed File System is an arranged client and server solution that enable a large organization to manage numerous allocated shared file within a distributed file system. It delivers site transparency and redundancy to enhance data accessibility in the midst of a breakdown or extreme load by permitting shares in a number of various locations to be logically arranged under a DFS root or a single folder.

It is a client/server-based service that permits individuals to directly access and process files located on the hosting server as if it had been on their personal computer. Every time an individual access a data on the server, the server transmits a copy of the data file, which is cache on the user’s personal computer while the information is being processed which is subsequently returned to the server.

Whenever individuals attempt to gain access to a share found off the DFS root, the individual is actually going through a DFS link allowing the DFS server to automatically re-direct it to the appropriate share and file server.

There can be two methods for utilizing DFS on a Windows Server:

A Standalone or Distinct DFS root provides you with a DFS root found only on the local computer, which therefore does not make use of Active Directory. A Standalone DFS can only be accessed on the local PC where it was made. It does not feature any kind of fault tolerance and could not be connected to any other DFS.

Domain-based DFS roots can be found within Active Directory which enables you to have their information and facts distributed to any number of domain controllers located in the domain; this provides you with fault tolerance to DFS. DFS roots that can be found on a domain needs to be hosted on a domain controller. This is to make sure that links with identical target get hold of all their duplicated data through the network. The file and root data is replicated by means of the Microsoft File Replication Service (FRS).

Advantages of DFS

1. Easy accessibility: individuals do not need to be aware of various locations from where they acquire data. Simply by remembering a single location they will have access to the data.

2. Fail Tolerance: for master DFS hosting server it is possible to obtain a duplicate (Target) on yet another DFS Server. With the help of the master DFS server end users are still able to continue on accessing the data from a back-up DFS (Target). There is absolutely no interruption in being able to access information.

3. Load Balancing: in the event that all of the DFS root servers and targets are operating in good condition, it results in Load balancing. This is often accomplished by indicating locations for different users.

4. Security and safety: By making use of the NTFS configuration, security is put into practice.