ort protocols instead of being restricted to just one. This allows it to utilize existing protocols today as well as new protocols in the future. Performance: NFS is designed for high performance so that users can access remote files as quickly as they can access local files. Security: The NFS architecture enables the utilization of multiple security mechanisms. This allows system administrators to choose the security mechanism that is appropriate for their distributed file sharing environment instead of being restricted to one solution. This also allows NFS to utilize new security mechanisms in the future. These features are implemented within the NFS client/server framework which reduces costs by enabling heterogeneous resource sharing across the global enterprise. Servers make their file systems sharable through a process called exporting. Clients gain access to these file systems by adding them to their local file "tree" via the mount process. The NFS protocol provides the medium for communication between client and server processes over the network. 1.2Alternative for NFS Naturally ,as a mechanism ,NFS has competitors .In particular ,integration of MS_DOS systems with file servers will certainly not be achieved by equipping all PCs with PC-NFS . For examples Remote File System (RFS), Open Software Foundations Distributed Computing Environment includes the Distributed File System (OSF/DCE DFS ).There are two primary methods currently used to provide PC to UNIX connectivity. The first, based on use of the Network File System (NFS) has been widely implemented since the early 1980s. The second, newer alternative is based on using the Common Internet File System (CIFS), formerly known as SMB (Server Message Block). SMB is an important protocol because of the large number of PCs out there that already have client and server implementations running on them. All Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95 and Windows NT systems are (or are capabl...
