NOADS™ Architecture
Heterogeneous Grid with Messaging Middleware
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The NOADS™ Platform runs on a heterogeneous Grid of independent nodes (H-GRID), which are networked together (via Ethernet) as a cluster. For maximum reliability, each node runs a full instance of the NOADS™ application, playing two roles: as an access point for handling user requests, and as a repository for storing raw data and metadata.
The NOADS™ dual functionality is handled by two runtime components:
- The Virtual Storage Pool System
- The Metabase System
The NOADS™ Virtual Storage Pool stores data objects in a node’s local file system. Each drive has its own storage manager; this allows the node to remove individual drives and to optimize throughput. The Virtual Storage Pool also provides system information, integrity checks on the data, and the ability to traverse local directory structures.
The NOADS™ Metadase is installed on each node. The cluster’s Metabase act collectively as a distributed database, managing all archive objects. On a given node, the Metabase System manages a subset of the NOADS™ objects, where each object maps between an external file – the data that entered the archive–and a set of internal files where this data is physically stored. The same Metabase System also maintains information about NOADS™ objects that are managed by other nodes. Thus, the current state of every NOADS™ object is always available to multiple Metabase Systems across the cluster. In the event of node failure, the Metabase Systems on other nodes continue to provide access to its objects.
