Castor: CERN Advanced STORage Manager
CASTOR is a hierarchical storage management system developed at CERN to archive massive volumes of physics data. It utilizes a component-based architecture to manage disk and tape storage, though it is currently being replaced by the CERN Tape Archive (CTA).
Why it matters
Understanding large-scale data management systems is critical for high-energy physics research and long-term data preservation.
The C ERN A dvanced STOR age manager (CASTOR) is a hierarchical storage (i.e. has disk and tape) management system which was developed at CERN for archiving physics data (with very large data volumes, see the plot on the right). Files can be stored, listed, retrieved and remotely accessed using CASTOR command-line tools or user applications that were developed using the CASTOR API. CASTOR provides a set of access protocols such as XROOT (the main and recommended protocol) and GridFTP. RFIO (Remote File IO) used to be supported until 2016.
The article is a technical description of a software system.
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