From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "J. Bruce Fields" Subject: Re: [LSF/MM TOPIC][ATTEND] linux servers as a storage server - what's missing? Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:16:55 -0500 Message-ID: <20120117211655.GE16118@fieldses.org> References: <4EF2026F.2090506@redhat.com> <20120103142609.2b4d06cb@tlielax.poochiereds.net> <7524F2E4-91F9-4DFE-958B-19D73B0AC26C@oracle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Jeff Layton , Ric Wheeler , linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, "linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org" To: Chuck Lever Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <7524F2E4-91F9-4DFE-958B-19D73B0AC26C@oracle.com> Sender: linux-scsi-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org On Tue, Jan 03, 2012 at 02:32:40PM -0500, Chuck Lever wrote: > > On Jan 3, 2012, at 2:26 PM, Jeff Layton wrote: > > > On Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:59:43 -0500 > > Ric Wheeler wrote: > > > >> > >> One common thing that I see a lot of these days is an increasing number of > >> platforms that are built on our stack as storage servers. Ranging from the > >> common linux based storage/NAS devices up to various distributed systems. > >> Almost all of them use our common stack - software RAID, LVM, XFS/ext4 and samba. > >> > >> At last year's SNIA developers conference, it was clear that Microsoft is > >> putting a lot of effort into enhancing windows 8 server as a storage server with > >> both support for a pNFS server and of course SMB. I think that linux (+samba) is > >> ahead of the windows based storage appliances today, but they are putting > >> together a very aggressive list of features. > >> > >> I think that it would be useful and interesting to take a slot at this year's > >> LSF to see how we are doing in this space. How large do we need to scale for an > >> appliance? What kind of work is needed (support for the copy offload system > >> call? better support for out of band notifications like those used in "thinly > >> provisioned" SCSI devices? management API's? Ease of use CLI work? SMB2.2 support?). > >> > >> The goal would be to see what technical gaps we have that need more active > >> development in, not just a wish list :) > >> > >> Ric > > > > Unfortunately, w/o a wishlist of sorts, it's hard to know what needs > > more active development ;). > > > > While HCH will probably disagree, being able to support more > > NFSv4/Windows API features at the VFS layer would make it a lot easier > > to do a more unified serving appliance. Right now, both knfsd and samba > > track too much info internally, and that makes it very difficult to > > serve the same data via multiple protocols. > > > > Off the top of my head, my "wishlist" for better NFSv4 serving would be: > > > > - RichACLs > > - Share/Deny mode support on open > > - mandatory locking that doesn't rely on weirdo file modes > > To add a few more NFSv4 related items: > > - Simplified ID mapping What are you thinking of here? --b. > and security configuration > - Support for NFSv4 migration and replication > - Better server observability (for operational and performance debugging in the field) > - FedFS and NFS basic junctions (already under way) > > > It's always going to be hard for us to compete with dedicated > > appliances. Where Linux can shine though is in allowing for more > > innovative combinations. > > > > Being able to do active/active NFS serving from clustered filesystems, > > for instance is something that we can eventually attain but that would > > be harder to do in an appliance. This sort of discussion might also > > dovetail with Benny's proposal about pNFS serving. > > > > -- > > Jeff Layton > > -- > > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in > > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > > -- > Chuck Lever > chuck[dot]lever[at]oracle[dot]com > > > > > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html