Operations with AFM modes

The operations with AFM modes are read only (RO), single writer (SW), local updates (LU), and independent writer (IW).

Read only (RO)
The following figure illustrates the RO mode.

Figure 1. Read only mode

In this mode, data in the cache is read-only. Creating or modifying files in the cache fileset is not allowed. If a file is renamed at the home for an RO fileset, the file is re-created in cache and is assigned a new inode number in the cache. If the file is in use by an application while it is re-created (deleted and re-created with the same name) at home, it gets re-created in cache.
Single writer (SW)
The following figure illustrates the SW mode.

Figure 2. Single writer mode

In this mode, only the cache fileset does all the writing and the cache does not check home for file or directory updates. The administrator needs to guarantee no writes are done in the home cluster. AFM does not enforce this check.

An SW home can have some pre-existing data. An SW cache can cache and update this data. Update of an uncached file from SW home caches the file. However, the truncate or append operations on an uncached file does not fetch the contents of the file into the cache, but queues the truncate or append operation to the home.

Local updates (LU)

This mode is similar to the RO mode, although you can create and modify files in the cache fileset. Updates in the cache are considered local to the cache and get decoupled from the corresponding file at home. Local updates are never pushed back to home. After modifications in a file, the file is no longer compared to the version at home during revalidation to verify that it is up-to-date. Changes of this file on home do not have an impact on the cached copy of the file and vice versa.

Behaviors with local files: In AFM, LU mode files have one of the following states:

Uncached: Files on the home for which metadata but no data is copied into the cache are shown in the cache as uncached. The file is not resident on cache, but only on the home. Changes on the home are reflected in the cache.
Cached: If an uncached file is read in the cache or pre-fetched, the state of the file changes to cached. In the cached state, all changes to the file on the home are reflected in the cache. The file is resident on the cache.
Local: File data or metadata that is modified at cache becomes local to the cache. The cached files relationship to the file in the home is broken. Changes on the home are not reflected in the cache anymore and file changes are not copied to the home.

Operations in the cache that trigger the transitions between these states are shown below:

The following tables summarize AFM LU mode behavior with local files:

File operation at home	Uncached file	Cached file	Local file
New Create	Reflects	Reflects	Reflects
Change data or attributes/Rename/Delete	Reflects	Reflects	Does not reflect

File operation at home	Uncached file	Cached file	Local file
File lookup revalidation	Pulls the metadata	Pulls the latest metadata	Does not pull the latest metadata
Read	Pulls the data	Pulls the latest data	Shows data in the local file – does not pull the latest data from the home
Prefetch	Prefetches the data	Prefetches the latest data	Does not prefetch the latest data from home
Change data	Pulls the data into cache and updates the changes	Pulls the latest to cache and updates the changes	Updates the local copy of the file and does not pull the latest data from the home before the update
Change attributes/metadata except delete EA	Updates the file and marks file as local	Updates the file and marks file as local	Updates the file – does not pull the latest metadata from the home before the update

Directories in a local-update cache:

Directories can become local in the LU mode with the following directory operations from the cache:

Deleting files or sub-directories in the cache directory
Creating new files or sub-directories in the cache directory
Renaming files or sub-directories in the cache directory

The following file operations on cache do not cause directories on the cache to become local:

Update the uncached or cached file
Add attributes to the file
Migrate the cached or local files to tape
Recall of the cached or local files from tape

A local directory in an LU cache can contain local, cached, and uncached files and directories. A local directory is not revalidated with home. Therefore, operations on the directory at home do not show up on the cache.

The following table summarizes AFM LU mode behavior with local directories:

Operation at home	Cache behavior - Normal directory	Cache behavior - Local directory
Create a file or subdirectory	Reflects in cache after next directory lookup	Does not show in cache after next directory lookup. Contents can be read or prefetched if the file name is known in the cache. After read or prefetch, the new file or directory shows up in the cache for future file lookup
Update data or attributes of an existing file or subdirectory	Reflects in cache after next file lookup	Reflects in cache after next file lookup
Rename an existing file or subdirectory	Reflects in cache after next file lookup	Does not show in cache after next directory lookup. On reading the file, contents from renamed file that is fetched into the cache into the old file name, old file name always prevails in the cache. New file name can arrive at the cache with prefetch, in which case both names will co-exist and point to the same inode at home.
Delete an existing file or subdirectory	Reflects in the cache after next directory lookup	Deleted upon the next file lookup

Directory operation from cache	Cache behavior - Normal directory	Cache behavior - Local directory
Directory revalidation	Pulls the latest metadata	Does not pull the latest metadata
Read a non-local file in the directory	Pulls the latest data	Pulls the latest data
Prefetch a non-local file	Prefetches the latest data	Prefetches the latest data
Create a file or directory	Updates and marks the directory local	Updates the local directory
Change data of a non-local file	Pulls the data into the cache, updates the file and marks file as local	Pulls the data into the cache, updates the file and marks the file as local
Change metadata of a non-local file except delete of EA	Updates the file and marks the file as local	Updates the file and marks the file as local

Appending to, truncating, or writing to an uncached file in LU mode fetches the entire file to the cache before making the change locally.

If you expect revalidation, change the LU fileset root directory with caution as this might cause the fileset to be marked as local, and context with the home is lost. For example, running chmod or chown of the LU fileset root directory causes all sub directories from fileset root to be out of synchronization with the home.

Independent writer (IW)
The following figure illustrates the IW mode.

Figure 4. Independent writer mode

This mode allows multiple cache filesets to point to the same home. There is no synchronous locking between clusters while updating home. Each cache reads from home and makes updates to the home independently of each other, based on the revalidation intervals and asynchronous delay.

This mode is used to access different files from each IW cache site, such as, the unique users at each site updating files in their home directory. While this mode allows multiple cache clusters to modify the same set of files, this should be only done by advanced users. This is because there is no locking or ordering between updates. Updates are propagated to the home in an asynchronous manner and can be delayed due to network disconnections. Therefore, conflicting updates from multiple cache sites can cause the data at the home site to be undetermined.

Writing in-place on a pre-existing uncached file at the home pulls the complete contents of the file into cache. However, truncate and append operations on an uncached file do not fetch the contents of the file into cache, but queues the truncate and append operations to home.

When many IW cache filesets point to the same NFS home, the number of NFS threads at home can be tuned for better efficiency. Increasing the revalidation intervals for the IW cache filesets might reduce the frequency of periodic refreshes from home and improve cache performance.

Note: Do not create hard links at home or in the cache when IW is used, as IW failback does not preserve hard links.

The following file attributes are maintained locally in cache: Control attributes, direct I/O, replication factors, fileset quotas, storage pool flags, special file types such as FIFO, socket, block, character device. Hard links can be created at cache. Hard links at home are displayed as individual files in cache.