Network File Systems

This allows a system to access files on another computer in a
somewhat more closely integrated fashion than FTP. A network file
system provides the illusion that disks or other devices from one
system are directly connected to other systems. There is no need to
use a special network utility to access a file on another system. Your
computer simply thinks it has some extra disk drives. These extra
"virtual" drives refer to the other system's disks. This capability is
useful for several different purposes. It lets you put large disks on
a few computers, but still give others access to the disk space. Aside
from the obvious economic benefits, this allows people working on
several computers to share common files. It makes system maintenance
and backup easier, because you don't have to worry about updating and
backing up copies on lots of different machines. A number of vendors
now offer high-performance diskless computers. These computers have n
disk drives at all. They are entirely dependent upon disks attached to
common "file servers". (See RFC's 1001 and 1002 for a description of
PC-oriented NetBIOS over TCP. In the workstation and minicomputer
area, Sun's Network File System is more likely to be used. Protocol
specifications for it are available from Sun Microsystems.)