Andrew file system (AFS)

The Andrew File System(AFS) is a distributed file system from the company Andrew Systems, which can be used on many computers and to which thousands of clients can be connected.

The clients can access the files and other resources through local area networks and wide area networks. In Andrew Filesystem the clients, file servers and database servers are physically and functionally separated from each other.

Access rights, authentication and user management are functional parts of the AFS system, as are encryption and synchronization of the clients with the servers. A typical environment for such a distributed file system is the Distributed Computing Environment( DCE).