Developer(s) | MapR |
---|---|
Full name | MapR FS |
Introduced | 2011 with Linux |
Structures | |
Directory contents | B-tree |
File allocation | Multi-level B-tree |
Limits | |
Max. volume size | unlimited |
Max. file size | 9 EB |
Max. number of files | unlimited |
Features | |
File system permissions | Standard Unix, Access Control expressions |
Transparent compression | Yes |
Transparent encryption | Yes |
Other | |
Supported operating systems | Linux |
The MapR File System (MapR FS) is a clustered file system that supports both very large-scale and high-performance uses. MapR FS supports a variety of interfaces including conventional read/write file access via NFS and a FUSE interface, as well as via the HDFS interface used by many systems such as Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark. In addition to file-oriented access, MapR FS supports access to tables and message streams using the Apache HBase and Apache Kafka APIs as well as via a document database interface.
First released in 2010, MapR FS is now typically described as the MapR Converged Data Platform due to the addition of tabular and messaging interfaces. The same core technology is, however, used to implement all of these forms of persistent data storage and all of the interfaces are ultimately supported by the same server processes. To distinguish the different capabilities of the overall data platform, the term MapR FS is used more specifically to refer to the file-oriented interfaces, MapR DB or MapR JSON DB is used to refer to the tabular interfaces and MapR Streams is used to describe the message streaming capabilities.
MapR FS is a cluster filesystem in that it provides uniform access from/to files and other objects such as tables using a universal namespace accessible from any client of the system. Access control is also provided for files, tables and streams using access control expressions, which are an extension of the more common (and limited) access control list to allow permissions to be composed not just of lists of allowed users or groups, but instead to allow boolean combinations of user id and groups.
MapR FS was developed starting in 2009 by MapR Technologies to extend the capabilities of Apache Hadoop by providing a more performant and stable platform. The design of MapR FS is influenced by various other systems such as the Andrew File System (AFS). The concept of volumes in AFS has some strong similarity from the point of the view of users, although the implementation in MapR FS is completely different. One major difference between AFS and MapR FS is that the latter uses a strong consistency model while AFS provides only weak consistency.