Client access to the global namespace

SAN File System clients mount the global namespace on their systems to access the filesets. After the global namespace is mounted on a client, users and applications can use it just as they do any other file system in order to access data and to create, update, and delete directories and files.

From a client's perspective, the global namespace appears as a normal directory. On a UNIX®-based client, the global namespace looks like a mounted file system. On a Windows® client, it appears as another drive letter and looks like any other NTFS file system. Basically, the global namespace looks and acts like any other file system on a client's system.

Note: A client cannot move, rename or delete a fileset, and cannot create hard links across fileset boundaries.

The following figure illustrates the appearance of the fileset from the metadata server and client perspectives. There are five filesets shown: the root, Images, Install, Unix_files, and Win_files. Some of these filesets have subdirectories (for example, the folder Backup is a subdirectory on the root filesystem, and the fileset Unix_files, has a subdirectory named data). The client, however, cannot tell which folders are filesets; they appear all as regular directories.


This illustration shows what filesets look like from a Windows client.

Parent topic: Global namespace

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