Open Systems File Interface

The Open Systems File Interface (OSFI) provides a standard mechanism for handling nonfile entities as if they were standard D3 files.

The high-level interface is through Super Q-Pointers that indicate the host name and some identifier of the data in the remote environment.

The OSFI uses the specified host information to access one of many low-level drivers, which opens a direct channel into the remote environment. All standard D3 file system calls are translated into a limited number of internal commands that all low-level drivers understand and can translate into the appropriate operation in their respective environments.

NOTE	Remote record locks are maintained by the remote data source (and not by D3). It is also important to note that some remote data sources do not support record locking (even though D3 data sources do).

The low-level drivers can be user-written or standard ones as provided by Rocket, including a D3 remote file driver, a UNIX remote file driver, and a D3 spooler driver.