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The time has arrived where data centers containing millions, hundreds of millions or even billions of files are a reality. With these large numbers of files, scalable automated management of this information is essential. The process of managing file data from where it is placed when it is created, where it moves in the storage hierarchy as its value changes, where its copied for disaster recovery or document retention to its eventual archival or deletion is often referred to as information lifecycle management (ILM).
This white paper discusses how the IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS) addresses these issues by tightly integrating the ILM functionality into a file system that can support billions of files shared across multiple heterogeneous systems running the AIX and Linux operating systems. This paper reviews various approaches to ILM and describes ILM tools available in GPFS 3.1. To better understand the benefits of the GPFS tools for ILM, the paper examines two other approaches to ILM: a layered software solution that sits on top on existing file systems and a network protocol approach that uses NFS/CIFS communications.
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