Constructing a Memory-Based Distributed Code Storage on Networked Diskless Embedded Systems

Advances in networking and microprocessor technology have enabled the development of a variety of small, lowcost, and resource-limited embedded systems. Such an embedded system is often diskless due to the weight, size, and cost of a disk. Because of the availability of inexpensive high-speed network cards, most embedded systems are networked, wired or wireless. We propose and implement a memory-based distributed code storage called NFC (Networked File Cache) for networked diskless embedded systems. NFC utilizes and integrates all available memory resources in a network to form a large-scaled code storage to which all applications in all nodes are allowed to access. To efficiently locate a file in NFC, we present a one-hop file lookup algorithm and a set of cache management algorithms dealing with file migrations and replications. In comparison with a client-server approach, the experimental results show that NFC successfully integrates memory resources in a network to significantly extend code storage and reduce file-access time of a diskless embedded system.