Description: The research paper Distributed Virtual Disks talks about Petal as an ideal storage system. It is not a bad thing if one dreams of having a high performance system. A system that has a greater storage capacity, a system that is globally accessible, unlimited performance and it has capacity to hold multitudes of customers and is available all the time. Such a thing will not be lesser than dream come true.
An ideal system like this is always available and has an intrinsic potential to expand unimaginably.
There has been increase in the production of low cost, scalable and high-performance networks that bring us very close to the dream of having an ideal system. Managing large storage systems is a costly and intricate process. Various estimates suggest that for $1 of storage $5-$10 is spent to manage it. It is that adding a new storage device frequently requires a dozen or more distinct steps, many of which require reasoning about the system as a whole and are, therefore, difficult to automate. Often a single component failure can stop the entire system, and requires considerable time and effort to recommence operation. For instance, in a network using a ring topology or a star topology, the hub acts like a server through which all the transactions occur. Thus, hub is a single element whose failure may result in a system halt. Moreover, the capacity and performance of individual components in the system must be monitored from time to time and equipoised to reduce fragmentation and removal of hot spots.
Conclusion: The research paper concludes on a note that Petal is indeed a very effective scalable storage system. With almost a very good potential to expand and perform incessantly. It does has some disadvantages and can be eliminated in the future. Nevertheless petal has emerged has an efficient storage device.
Download Distributed Virtual Disks Technical Paper Presentation.