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SGI® CXFS™

Shared Filesystem

SGI’s InfiniteStorage Shared Filesystem CXFS is the third-generation SAN software from SGI which features no-compromise data sharing, enhanced workflow, and reduced costs in data-intensive environments. It also provides:

• Industry-leading performance
• Journaling for reliability, and fast recovery
• 64-bit scalability
• Dynamically allocated metadata space

CXFS is the fastest shared filesystem software in the industry, and provides direct, high-speed physical connections between multiple hosts and disk storage. With unparalleled 64-bit scalability and performance, and:

• Significant reductions in management and maintenance
• Optimization of workflow processes
• Ability to share files at fast transfer rates
• High availability (don't have to depend on a single server for data access)
• Data security (CXFS ensures that the data will not be corrupted by multiple access)
• Better use of available space (users won't copy large files to local systems for better access)
• Elimination of bottlenecks and delays

CXFS allows simultaneous shared access to files, so that large files are shared and not moved. All systems have direct access to data CXFS, which reduces networking bottlenecks which occur when files are manually copied to and from the network filesystem using FTP, which clogs networks and overloading file servers.

Providing high-performance file shared among Solaris, Linux, AIX, IRIX, and Mac OS X systems. Supported OS’s include:

• IRIX
• Solaris 8 and Solaris 9
• Windows NT, 2000, and XP
• Red Hat 7.3 and RedHat 8.0 for 32-bit Linux
• IBM AIX 5L
• 64-bit Linux for SGI Altix
• more to be added soon

Based on the industry-leading XFSTM filesystem, CXFS benefits from field proven and feature-rich capabilities such as:

• scalability that supports file sizes up to 9 million terabytes, filesystems to 18 million terabytes
• highly optimized distributed buffering techniques that provide the industry's fastest performance
• high availability with automatic failure detection and recovery
• centralized, intuitive Java™ language-based management tools
• POSIX compliance that requires no application change
• Advanced metadata management
• LAN-free backup

There are many capabilities which make the CXFS ideal for large file-based application, like prepress and publishing agencies, because this filesystem is enhanced for typical workloads like:

• Read and writing to a file opened by a single process
• Reading and writing to a file where all processes with that file open reside on the same host
• Multiple processes on multiple hosts reading the same file
• Multiple processes on multiple hosts reading and writing the same file, using direct I/O

SGI also provides HA/DR software solutions for advanced data protection, such as SGI FailSafe.

Datasheet (.pdf)

Whitepaper (.pdf)