Written for UNIX system administrators, this guide deals with AFS, a high-end UNIX filing system developed at Carnegie Mellon University and used widely in many industries such as banking and finance. This title explains how to manage AFS to its greatest effect including the installation of an adequate server setup to handle thousands of clients with a minimum of administrator and hardware overhead.

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Master AFS, the Internet's most scalable, manageable distributed file system.

One technology already delivers the scalability, flexibility, power, and centralized file systems management the entire computer industry keeps promising: the Andrew File System (AFS). That's why hundreds of large institutions worldwide are already using AFS to reliably support their users' distributed file storage needs.

Managing AFS is the first book that brings together the critical information you need to build and maintain a reliable AFS-based distributed file system. Learn how AFS works, how it implements the client/server model, and why it's uniquely well-designed to serve the needs of today's organizations. Then, discover how to:

• Make the right architectural and topology choices to optimize AFS up front
• Take full advantage of AFS' powerful large-scale administration tools
• Slash desktop administration costs with AFS file caching and heterogeneous system support
• Set up and maintain user accounts(including how to create "dataless clients"
• Archive AFS data using built-in tools or third-party options
• Improve reliability through replication and automatic client failover
• Provide unified file services for UNIX(R) and Windows NT(R) desktops

Managing AFS includes detailed coverage of AFS security, including user authentication and Kerberos; AFS debugging and monitoring; solutions for providing access to Windows NT clients; and much more. You'll also find real-world AFS case studies, and a step-by-step guide to evaluating, piloting, and rolling out AFS throughout your organization and connecting to other AFS sites around the world.

If you're not looking for a better distributed storage solution yet, you will be soon. There's only one best-of-breed solution: AFS. And there's only one definitive guide to this revolutionary technology: Managing AFS.

Intended for UNIX system administrators, this work explains how to manage AFS to its greatest effect, including the installation of an adequate server setup to handle thousands of clients with a minimum if administrator and hardware overhead. It shows how AFS solved the distributed file system problem, and covers how to extend AFS usage to very large sites. It also presents a cogent business case for using AFS.