Agent-Based Online Secure Disks Using NASD Model Approach

Abstract

Increasing performance and decreasing cost of microprocessors make it feasible to move processing power to the data source. This allowed us to investigate new methods of storage delivery and management not plausible in the past. Our architecture, inspired by agent-based techniques and active disk technology, promotes an open storage management framework that embeds functionality into storage devices. We use local agents to implement self-control with automated capability that can be dynamically adapted to meet storage management through improved search capabilities in the virtual environment and also retain capabilities like security, performance and availability. This paper reports experimentation on how storage virtualisation of network attached devices improves performance by using NASD model, explains attempts in building mobile agent environments on network attached disks, and demonstrates proposed framework that employs mobile agents to supplement the existing NASD model.