A Generic Storage API

TL;DR

This paper introduces a highly flexible, generic storage API composed of four core components designed to be adaptable for various storage architectures and customizable by applications.

Contribution

It defines a minimal set of composable storage system building blocks that can be used to construct diverse storage infrastructures.

Findings

Four main components: store, namer, caster, interpreter

Components are defined by interfaces for flexibility

Hypothesized to be applicable to any storage and retrieval system

Abstract

We present a generic API suitable for provision of highly generic storage facilities that can be tailored to produce various individually customised storage infrastructures. The paper identifies a candidate set of minimal storage system building blocks, which are sufficiently simple to avoid encapsulating policy where it cannot be customised by applications, and composable to build highly flexible storage architectures. Four main generic components are defined: the store, the namer, the caster and the interpreter. It is hypothesised that these are sufficiently general that they could act as building blocks for any information storage and retrieval system. The essential characteristics of each are defined by an interface, which may be implemented by multiple implementing classes.