SAN Optimal Multi Parameter Access Scheme

Storage Area Networks commonly consist a more or less static set of n data servers that handle a dynamic collection of m documents. Such SANs can minimize the access time to documents by distributing each document among several servers, allowing users to access documents in parallel. This paper describes an efficient solution for providing parallel access to multiple hard disks for popular content. In extension to previous approaches we provide an efficient and elegant hash table data structure for utilizing the full capacity of each data server. Concerning the dynamics, documents as well as server may be added or removed from the system causing only local changes. We consider sequential and parallel access to data in the average case. For the average time model we present a fast optimal algorithm.