An Effective File Migration Algorithm in Cluster File Systems

I/O balancing is an attractive problem in distributed systems. With the fast growth of high-speed network technology, file migration becomes an effective way to solve the problem. In this paper, we present an effective file migration algorithm in our cluster file system – THCluFS. Our algorithm moves files from congested nodes to relatively uncongested nodes according to the information of current system states. The algorithm makes each file migration beneficial to the mean response time of file requests. Moreover, we use simulation to demonstrate that file migration can improve system overall performance greatly in cluster file systems. Our results indicate that the cluster system with file migration algorithm not only achieves higher scalability and more powerful processing capability, but also makes the effect of network traffic reduced about 12%.