FRB: File Resource Broker for Integrating Heterogeneous File Resources

With the development of network infrastructure and grid technology, a large quantity of file resources are required to be accessed and shared especially in scientific area. However the heterogeneous characteristic of these file resources brings a big challenge to programmer. We have designed and implemented the File Resource Broker (FRB), a light-weight and easy-to-use system for integrating heterogeneous files resources. With FRB, users could organize, manage and access heterogeneous file resources under a unified view in which file resources are organized into a directory tree. The underlying transfer mechanism is transparent to users, which makes heterogeneous file resources behave as local files. Experimental results show that FRB provides high performance of accessing file resources. The response time and transport speed of heterogeneous file resources are fast.