L-Store provides a flexible logistical storage framework for distributed and scalable access to data for a wide spectrum of users. L-Store is designed to provide: virtually unlimited scalability in raw storage; support for arbitrary metadata associated with each file; user controlled fault tolerance and data reliability on a file and directory level; scalable performance in raw data movement; a virtual file system interface with both a native mount in Linux (exportable via NFS and CIFS to other platforms) and a high performance command line interface; and support for the geographical distribution and migration of data to facilitate quick access. These features are accomplished by segregating directory and metadata services from data transfer. Logistical Networking is used as the block-level data abstraction for storage with L-Store clients directly performing all data I/O  without going through an intermediate server as is done for NFS and CIFS.  This means adding storage adds both capacity but also bandwidth.

Logistical Networking

Logistical Networking (LN) is a distributed storage management technology which has been expressly designed to deal with the current flood of data.  In order to make shared storage infrastructure a ubiquitous part of the underlying communication fabric, LN builds on a highly generic, best effort storage service, called the Internet Backplane Protocol (IBP) that is design by analogy with the Internet Protocol (IP) in order to produce a common  storage service that maximizes interoperability and scalability. IBP was developed by the Logistical Computing and Internetworking (LoCI) Lab at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. IBP enables the movement of large data sets via the simultaneous transfer of data fragments rather than requiring the sequential transfer of the entire data set or file.  Mirroring, data striping, fault tolerance, and recovery features are also supported by IBP