DelveFS-An Event-Driven Semantic File System for Object Stores

Abstract

Data-driven applications are becoming increasingly important in numerous industrial and scientific fields, growing the need for scalable data storage, such as object storage. Yet, many data-driven applications cannot use object interfaces directly and often have to rely on third-party file system connectors that support only a basic representation of objects as files in a flat namespace. With sometimes millions of objects per bucket, this simple organization is insufficient for users and applications who are usually only interested in a small subset of objects. These huge buckets are not only lacking basic semantic properties and structure, but they are also challenging to manage from a technical perspective as object store file systems cannot cope with such directory sizes. DelveFS is the first object store file system that solves this challenge by offering the ability to compose a custom semantic file system that allows multiple unique views onto the object store. Through flexible filters, users can specify each view’s content, tailored to their unique interests or an application’s requirements. By processing object store events which describe changes in the object store, DelveFS is able to keep all views eventually consistent. DelveFS allows to operate concurrently through the object and file system interfaces on the same set of objects, delivering similar file system throughput compared to the native object store interfaces or other file system connectors. DelveFS is the first object store file system that solves this challenge by offering the ability to compose a custom semantic file system that allows multiple unique views onto the object store. Through flexible filters, users can specify each view’s content, tailored to their unique interests or an application’s requirements. By processing object store events which describe changes in the object store, DelveFS is able to keep all views eventually consistent. DelveFS allows to operate concurrently through the object and file system interfaces on the same set of objects, delivering similar file system throughput compared to the native object store interfaces or other file system connectors.