Common Internet File System & Its Features

The Common Internet File System (CIFS) is the typical way that the computer users to share files across corporate intranets and also the Internet. It defines a series of commands used to pass information between networked computers. Some of the platforms that CIFS supports are Microsoft Windows, UNIX, VMS, and Macintosh etc. CIFS complements Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) while providing more sophisticated file sharing and file transfer than older protocols, such as FTP.

SMB file sharing is a dialect of common internet file system and SMB has many versions for server windows and are widely used. CIFS or common internet file system has many features that are listed below:

•  Reliability and Concurrency: It allows multiple clients to access and update the same file while preventing conflicts by providing file sharing and file locking. File sharing and file locking is the process of allowing one user to access a file at a time and blocking access to all other users. File caches of buffers must be cleared before the file is usable by other clients. These capabilities ensure that only one copy of a file can be active at a time, preventing data corruption which helps in making the data highly reliable.

•  Optimization for Slow Links: The common internet file system protocol has been tuned to run well over slow-speed dial-up lines and slow internet servers. The effect has immensely improved the performance for users who access the Internet using a modem.

•  Safekeeping: CIFS servers support both anonymous transfers and secure, authenticated access to named files. File and directory security policies are easy to administer which helps in maintaining the security and authenticity of the documents.

•  Performance and Scalability: These servers are highly integrated with its own operating system, and, therefore, are automatically tuned for maximum system performance which results in high-grade results.

•  Unicode File Naming: The file names can be prescribed and named in any character set, not just character sets designed for English or Western European languages.

•  Global File Names: The users do not have to grow remote file systems, but can refer to them directly with globally significant names which can be located anywhere on the Internet, instead of ones that have only local significance on a local computer or LAN.