Abstract

This paper proposes the use of a wide-area file system for storing and retrieving documents. We demonstrate that most of the functionality of the World-Wide Web (WWW) information service can be provided by storing documents in AFS. The approach addresses several performance problems experienced by WWW servers and clients, such as increased server and network load, network latency and inadequate security. In addition, the mechanism demonstrates the value of a global, general purpose file sharing system and the advantage of layering existing technologies. 1 Introduction The dramatic increase in networked information access through the World-Wide Web [1] demonstrates the value of wide-area information sharing. However, the Web faces many challenges as it continues to scale to accommodate the ever increasing number of users. Among those are increased server and network load, network latency and inadequate security. Several decades of distributed systems research address the proble...

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