{"ID":5676003,"CreatedAt":"2026-07-03T01:40:09.565152011Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-07-04T21:23:35.342999881Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.01486","arxiv_id":"2607.01486","title":"SLFS: a Flexible, Low-Cost Distributed File System Using Serverless Designs","abstract":"Large-scale distributed file systems must provision resources for peak demand, yet file access patterns fluctuate significantly, leaving substantial capacity idle during off-peak periods. Existing scaling mechanisms operate at the granularity of entire servers and take minutes to hours, making them unable to track the rapid, fine-grained load variations that file systems commonly experience. Serverless computing, with its millisecond-granularity elasticity and pay-per-use pricing, offers a compelling alternative. We present SLFS, the first distributed file system built with serverless functions for both data and metadata operations. SLFS implements file services on top of key-value stores, keeping function operations simple and short, and introduces a novel multi-threaded, short-lived server design that overcomes the cold-start problem while maintaining low cost. A policy-enforcing coordinator efficiently maps files to function instances, scales the system elastically, and controls function lifetimes to balance performance and cost. SLFS can flexibly run on diverse storage backends -- from cloud-native services like S3 to user-managed key-value stores -- enabling configurable cost-performance trade-offs. Our evaluation shows that SLFS mitigates cold starts by 580$\\times$ compared to the base serverless design and outperforms $λ$FS, EFS, and Ceph at up to 63%, 68%, and 63% lower cost, respectively.","short_abstract":"Large-scale distributed file systems must provision resources for peak demand, yet file access patterns fluctuate significantly, leaving substantial capacity idle during off-peak periods. Existing scaling mechanisms operate at the granularity of entire servers and take minutes to hours, making them unable to track the...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.01486","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.01486v1","authors":"[\"Cheng Hao\",\"Yang\",\"Paola Alsharabaty\",\"Soufiane Jounaid\",\"Cristina Nita-Rotaru\",\"Ji-Yong Shin\"]","published":"2026-07-01T21:31:59Z","proceeding":"cs.DC","tasks":"[\"cs.DC\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}