4 Implementing NFSv4 in the Enterprise: Planning and Migration Strategies
1.1 Overview of enterprise file systems
Early computing environments consisted of large, centrally managed systems
requiring significant environmental controls. Data was accessed using
character-cell terminals directly connected to individual machines; no local
storage was available to the user except in the form of offline media such as
magnetic tape. This resulted in a simple, centrally administered management
environment, but also required users to share processor time and other
resources. It was also difficult to provide access to geographically remote
systems, and such connections might be extremely slow or otherwise unreliable.
This situation changed significantly ...