Both the Google File System and the IBM Grid Access Storage Manager from Bycast share some common assumptions. These are that commodity software and hardware components will fail, and that continuously available storage architectures should span multiple storage servers, multiple types of disk farms, multiple locations and multiple clients. This emerging reference model for unstructured data is a significant departure from traditional, monolithic single system approaches.
Action Item: System architects should use this reference model for future storage infrastructures, especially for unstructured data. XAM is a standard that is likely to facilitate the adoption of this approach, so that applications can request storage services on demand and architects should actively encourage its adoption.
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