An Introduction to Distributed Filesystems
Jeff Darcy obliged:
[…] when should one consider using a distributed filesystem instead of an oh-so-fashionable key/value or table/document store for one’s scalable data needs? First, when the data and API models fit. Filesystems are good at hierarchical naming and at manipulating data within large objects (beyond the whole-object GET and PUT of S3-like systems), but they’re not so good for small objects and don’t offer the indices or querying of databases (SQL or otherwise). Second, it’s necessary to consider the performance/cost curve of a particular workload on a distributed filesystem vs. that on some other type of system. If there’s a fit for data model and API and performance, though, I’d say a distributed filesystem should often be preferred to other options. The advantage of having something that’s accessible from every scripting language and command-line tool in the world, without needing special libraries, shouldn’t be taken lightly. Getting data in and out, or massaging it in any of half a million ways, is a real problem that isn’t well addressed by any storage system with a “unique” API (including REST-based ones) no matter how cool that storage system might be otherwise.
Original title and link: An Introduction to Distributed Filesystems (NoSQL databases © myNoSQL)
