Shared file system having a token-ring style protocol for managing meta-data

Abstract

A system is disclosed having shared storage nodes and a number of processing nodes coupled to the shared storage nodes. The storage nodes are to store user data and file system meta-data (FSMD) and can be accessed by the processing nodes. Each respective processing node stores a copy of the FSMD, and can update its copy of the FSMD based upon content of a token received from one of the processing nodes. The processing node adds information to the token that describes a change that node makes to the copy of the FSMD, and then sends the token to another one of the processing nodes. Such a scheme may prove to be a more scalable solution for a shared file system as the number of processing nodes are increased, because the overhead associated with managing the meta-data does not significantly diminish the performance of the storage system as a whole.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.