The latest advances in network and distributedsystem technologies now allow integration of a vast variety of services with almost unlimited processing power, using large amounts of data. Sharing of resources is often viewed as the key goal for distributed systems, and in this context the sharing of stored data appears as the most important aspect of distributed resource sharing. Scientific applications are the first to take advantage of such environments as the requirements of current and future high performance computing experiments are pressing, in terms of even higher volumes of issued data to be stored and managed. While these new environments reveal huge opportunities for large-scale distributed data storage and management, they also raise important technical challenges, which need to be addressed. The ability to support persistent storage of data on behalf of users, the consistent distribution of up-to-date data, the reliable replication of fast changing datasets or the efficient management of large data transfers are just some of these new challenges. In this chapter we discuss how the existing distributed computing infrastructure is adequate for supporting the required data storage and management functionalities. We highlight the issues raised from storing data over large distributed environments and discuss the recent research efforts dealing with challenges of data retrieval, replication and fast data transfers. Interaction of data management with other data sensitive, emerging technologies as the workflow management is also addressed.
Blockchain Networks – Security Aspects and Consensus Models