The Structure and Interpretation of the SMB Protocol

This book discusses the current status of the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol and its relevance, use and applications in the data storage world at present. Starting from the origin of the protocol, this book traces the evolution of the protocol through the dark ages, when the protocol was proprietary and its transition into being an open protocol. It also discusses the current applications that use the SMB protocol as well as possible applications in the future.

The analysis of the protocol in the book captures the detailed structure as well as the rationale behind the design. It illustrates the relationship between SMB protocol and other protocols in the context of the Microsoft Windows ecosystem as well as the assimilation of SMB into other operating system environments, such as Linux (Unix), Mac OS, Android, iOS etc. The final chapters of this book discuss the questions of performance, scaling and largescale use especially in cloud environments, weaknesses and security issues in the current set of implementations of the protocol. It also examines the question of interoperability of SMB with other popular NAS protocols exposing distributed file system semantics such as NFSv3 and v4.

This book is designed for advanced-level students in computer science and engineering as a secondary textbook. Researchers and practitioners working in Data Storage Systems will also find this book useful as a reference, as well as any engineering team that is working on SMB and related protocols.