U-M CENTER FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION (CITI) AND MICROSOFT CORPORATION

For more than 20 years, CITI has operated in what its director Peter Honeyman calls "the idea space." The Center was created to advance information technology by identifying gaps in the cyber-infrastructure and finding solutions, often in collaboration with industry. The resulting protocols are made available to business, government and the public at large in the form of open-source software.

Over the years, CITI's research partners have included IBM, NetApp, Sun Microsystems, EMC, and other industry leaders. In 2008, CITI entered into a two-year agreement with Microsoft Windows to create a new 4.1 version of the Linux-based Network File System (NFSv4.0) it had helped to develop ten years earlier.

As Honeyman, a professor of computer science and engineering, explains: "NFS is a protocol for sharing files among networked computers and storage devices, particularly with UNIX and Linux-based software. Microsoft commissioned us to build a new Windows-based protocol that would give high-end computer users secure, transparent access to vast amounts of data across all major operating systems-what the industry terms seamless interoperability." The key, he goes on to explain, is parallel Network File System (pNFS) technology, an area in which CITI is noted for its expertise.

"I'm very excited to see the CITI lab embark on this project," says Bob Muglia, president of Microsoft's Server and Tools Business. Muglia, a U-M alumnus, notes that "NFSv4.1 is an important standard for accessing parallel file systems in the high-performance computing market. Ultimately, CITI's work will help change the way customers can combine their systems by enabling computers running Windows to directly and easily access NFS file shares on servers running Linux, Solaris, and AIX operating systems."