Integration of a storage system for bare machine computing

Abstract

This research investigates and develops strategies for integrating a storage system with bare machine computing (BMC) applications, which run without the support of any operating system (OS) or kernel. Any storage system requires reliability, availability, survivability and high performance. We first explored reliability and performance of storage data using a redundant array of independent disk (RAID) technique and applied this to BMC file systems. The RAID design and implementation was done using 2, 4, and 8 detachable mass storage devices (USB flash drives). We resolved many design issues that arose when integrating a file system with multiple flash drives, and conducted experiments on a variety of storage data split configurations. We then integrated the file system and RAID application with a bare PC Web server that allows users to access storage online. We also integrated the SQLite database with the bare PC file system and the bare PC Web server. We showed that the BMC architecture allows us to integrate other components. We used the integrated database system to demonstrate two popular applications that run on a bare PC. The database provides services for clients via a Web interface and associated queries. It is further used to provide an email service for a select group of clients, where the database serves as storage media for messages. As the email service is limited to a small group of users, it is a closed and secure communication system. In this research, we integrated many components including the Web server, database and email applications, file system, RAID, and SQLite enabling them to run as a single monolithic executable on a bare machine. The integrated BMC system has inherent security and performance benefits due to not running an OS or kernel. Our work provides a foundation to build future BMC systems that integrate additional components with bare PC applications.