RAIDframe: Rapid Prototyping for Disk Arrays (CMU-CS-95-200)

In recent years, researchers have introduced a multitude of redundant disk array architectures. Unfortunately, using the tradi-tional manual firmware-design approach employed by storage sys-tem designers, implementing control software for these redundant disk array architectures has led to long product-development times, yielded uncertain product reliability, and inhibited designers from exploring the benefits of new architectures. What is needed is array prototyping technology that makes it easier to experiment with design changes while also making it easier to ensure correct functioning of these changes. We introduce RAIDframe, a framework for rapid prototyping and evaluation of redundant disk arrays. Using a graphical pro-gramming abstraction and a mechanized execution strategy, we are able to quickly construct working prototypes which can immedi-ately be evaluated each of three environments: a device driver run-ning against real disks, a user process running against real disks, or an event-driven simulator. This paper describes the basic structure of RAIDframe as well as our experiences with it.