Linked List Archiving Protocol

Petabyte-scale mass storage solutions have traditionally been based on RAID arrays coupled with tape archives. These solutions are costly ($44/GB), require significant facilities support, have long access latency, impose network bottlenecks, and incur significant ongoing support and maintenance costs. To address the Navy’s data storage problem, POC proposes to complete the development of an entirely new distributed mass storage architecture, Linked List Archiving (LILA). LILA breaks a file into small pieces, and stores them on excess space on individual users’ C-drives, and thus does not require additional hardware. In Phase II, POC will adapt the data management routines for dynamic, quasi-static, and static data; develop load balancing and partition routing schemes; design and code interfaces to the Navy’s NIPERNET platform; and produce indexing protocols allowing fast and efficient file retrieval. POC will then integrate LILA with the Navy’s NIPERNET and demonstrate its functionality and potential to store data for $0.80 per gigabyte for large scale networks. Phase II will culminate in an alpha version LILA system ready for Phase III transition to beta and subsequent release versions.