FOURMIS RDNFS, redundant distributed network file system

This paper presents Fourmis RDNFS, a Redundant Distributed Network File System. Each individual station employing the Fourmis RDNFS software simultaneously serves its own backup needs as well as those of the collective network. The current typical network server backup solution fails to fully service these individual workstations needs, exposing important corporate information to risk. It also wastes valuable and costly network resources, as most of a company's hard disc drive space goes unused. Moreover, it is important to notice that the current typical network server backup solution is more expensive than it needs to be, as X number of increased workstations necessitates an additional Y $ in-server related costs. Finally it copies all data to a singularly concentrated destination, this backup linchpin often has no redundancy itself. The Fourmis RDNFS project is based on an engine which is fully adaptive not only to the LAN's working dynamics but also to each station's own data needs as it dispatches and receives data to and from all interconnected stations on a network. It has been designed so that each computer acts simultaneously as both backup server and client for every other computer on the network and thus the number of redundancies equals the number of computers. The project includes five components: the Kernel driver, the Communication Interface, the Local Storage module, the Distribution System and a GUI module. Fourmis RDNFS was designed as a modular project and developed entirely in C/C++. The Qt library was referenced for the GUI.