A file-system abstraction for virtualized infrastructure

The projection of the structure and operations of virtualized infrastructure onto a file-system structure yields a familiar interface for management and the opportunity to perform management operations with non-specialised tools for file and directory manipulation. The file-system paradigm offers a well-known information model onto which the infrastructure data model is mapped. We describe the mapping of the static and dynamic structure and discuss its potential and limitations. The concepts are illustrated to the reader by means of the Virtualized Infrastructure File-System prototype, that is discussed in terms of architecture and operation.