SCIENCE

OrangeFS, the next-generation Open Source file system for high-performance computing,
now offers native access through a Windows Client.

Today the Omnibond OrangeFS development team announced availability of the Windows* Client, which enables transparent access to the next-generation parallel file system for desktops and servers using Microsoft* Windows.

With the new Windows Client, harnessing the power and speed of OrangeFS is as simple or as powerful as you need it to be. If scale-out storage access from the Windows platform is one of your objectives, it is as transparent as mapping a network drive. If, however, you aim to leverage the power of OrangeFS for high-performance parallel computing, full programmatic access is available via standard parallel programming APIs, such as MPICH2. Options for authentication and user mapping include LDAP and X.509 certificates. The Client, which runs as a standard Windows service, supports Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 (all editions); x86 and x64.

“By making OrangeFS seamlessly available to the Windows environment, we are advancing one of our primary goals, which is providing diverse access methods to the power and flexibility of OrangeFS.” said Boyd Wilson of Omnibond Systems. “By making OrangeFS access ubiquitous, we can help more customers solve their never ending data growth problems.”

“The reach of OrangeFS has been extended to the full spectrum of Windows users, including IT administrators, programmers and researchers,” Walt Ligon, lead architect and founding developer of OrangeFS, said. “The client sees OrangeFS as a standard Windows drive. You can view files though Windows Explorer and the Command Prompt, or you can access files programmatically through standard function calls—like fopen() in C,” he added.

The Windows Client currently supports 32- and 64-bit versions of  Windows Vista, 7, Server 2008 and 2008 R2. Along with all other components of OrangeFS, it can be downloaded at orangefs.org, home of the project’s development community. Parties interested in enterprise support for OrangeFS can visitomnibond.com for more information about a range of commercial-grade services, as well as the latest product roadmap and features discussion.