Archiving file system for data servers in a distributed network environment

A file system that is part of an operating system program executing in a distributed computer processing network having a plurality of computer processors operably connected to one or more data servers each comprised of a remote secondary storage system for storing one or more remote files of data information, at least one of the data servers including one or more short-term direct access storage devices and one or more long-term, randomly positionable, removable media archive storage devices, the file system comprising:

• control structure means for each data server for storing separate control information for each remote file stored on that data server, the control information for each remote file including:
• attribute means for storing a set of hierarchical attributes associated with the remote file;
• disk address extent array means for storing an array of pointers to a sequence of logical blocks that is dynamically allocated on the data server where the data information for the remote file is stored on the direct access storage devices;
• archive record means for storing control information for the remote file when the data information for the remote file is stored on the removable media archive storage devices;
• directory structure means for each data server for storing an identifying name for each remote file stored on that data server and a pointer to the control information unique to that remote file;
• and
• program means for responding to each of a plurality of file requests from one or more computer programs executing on the distributed computer processing network to operate on an indicated one of the remote files by selectively accessing the directory structure means and the control structure means for the data server on which the remote file is stored in order to obtain access to the control information and the data information for the indicated one of the remote files, the program means including:
• means for automatically archiving remote files stored on the direct access storage devices as archive files stored on the archive storage devices in accordance with selected ones of the hierarchical attributes stored in the attribute means of the control information of a remote file being archived.

A file system that is part of an operating system program executing in at least one computer processor operably connected to at least one data server, at least one of the data servers including a plurality of direct access storage devices that are organized as at least one storage family sets, each of said at least one storage family sets comprising a plurality of physically unique direct access storage devices, the file system comprising:

• control structure means for each data server for storing separate control information for each data file stored on that data server;
• directory structure means for each data server for storing an identifying name for each data file stored on that data server and a pointer to the control information unique to that data file;
• program means for responding to each of a plurality of file requests from one or more computer programs executing on the at least one computer processor to operate on an indicated one of the data files by selectively accessing the directory structure means and the control structure means for the data server on which the data file is stored in order to obtain access to the control information and the data information for the indicated one of the data files, the program means including:
• means for collectively accessing said at least one storage family sets on a block-by-block basis and implementing a software striping of a data file across the storage family sets by arranging a plurality of blocks comprising the data file stored on the storage family sets to be stored with selected ones of the blocks stored in their entirety on separate ones of the physically unique direct access storage devices.