Red Hat announces GFS 240
PSUdaemon writes "Over at Kernel Trap they have an announcment that Red Hat has released GFS under the GPL and offer it through RHN. This could potentially be a very substantial offering from Red Hat."
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Red Hat announces GFS
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Compatibility? (Score:4, Interesting)
--
11 Gmail invitations availiable [retailretreat.com]
Re:Compatibility? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course it will, It's GPL and looking for inclusing into the kernel. Just like everything else from Red Hat. If you expect them to optimize it for SuSe, Mandrake, Gentoo you're mistaken but sometimes they supply Debian packages for things they write. If it doesn't get accepted upstream for whatever reason It's up to vendors to supply the packages, not the writer of the software.
I don't think so (Score:3, Interesting)
Red Hat's HA clustering software is also GPL but it doesn't run on other distros (and is not supported by Red Hat on other distros).
The code itself is open source, that is true, but "Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription [is] required" (http://www.redhat.com/software/rha/gfs/)
Re:I don't think so (Score:5, Informative)
Of course Red Hat doesn't support other distros, but what makes you think the clustering software doesn't work on them? All the bits and pieces are available for download [redhat.com]. If you find any "if (distro != RH) exit()" code in the fully GPL'd cluster toolchain, please feel free to remove them. There's no secret sauce to RHEL, it's all open source and everyone is free to copy and modify the code.
There's already one distro that includes the new GPL'ed GFS filesystem out as of today, Lineox [lineox.com]. And Red Hat will be working to get GFS up to spec for inclusion in the official Linux kernel according to posts made to the kernel mailing list.
The code itself is open source, that is true, but "Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription [is] required"
This only refers to that point that Red Hat is not interested in selling to you unless you have a RHEL subscription. That $2,200 gets you GFS up and running on your RHEL cluster in a turnkey fashion, and it gives you the option to purchase further 24/7 one-hour response support contracts. You're free to assemble it all into a working system by yourself if you want.
Re:I don't think so (Score:5, Informative)
I am personaly going to try installing GFS on some Debian systems for a U of M student group who recently got a donation of some used Fibre-Channel disk.
What I'm hoping for now is support for ia64, and other platforms. It would also be nice if GFS could now be ported to other OS's like AIS and Solaris.
executive summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:executive summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:executive summary? (Score:2)
Re:executive summary? (Score:5, Informative)
GFS (Global File System) is a cluster file system. It allows a cluster of computers to simultaneously use a block device that is shared between them (with FC, iSCSI, NBD, etc...). GFS reads and writes to the block device like a local filesystem, but also uses a lock module to allow the computers coordinate their I/O so filesystem consistency is maintained. One of the nifty features of GFS is perfect consistency -- changes made to the filesystem on one machine show up immediately on all other machines in the cluster.
and
GFS has no single point of failure, is incrementally scalable from one to hundreds of Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers, and works with all standard Linux applications.
Dunno if any other linux "file systems" have all that.
Re:executive summary? (Score:2, Insightful)
Newcomer? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:executive summary? (Score:2)
What I need is a simple mirroring system for two failover servers, without single point of failure. Nothing out there at the moment seems to be stable enough for this in production. It's very frustrating. DFS and FRS seem to work just fine under Windows, so why ha
Re:executive summary? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes your architecture can be designed with a single point of failure. However, in practice you will want to connect this to a SAN. The SAN will be full of dually connected disks, have 2 main controllers, at least 2 power supplies, be connected to two switch banks via 2 HBA's, and each server will be connected to each switch. For added safety, direct connect another SAN to the first, and mirror all data between the SAN's.
But mainly, a good SAN is designed to be dually redundant from the ground up. Kind of like those (Fujitsu? Panasonic?) servers that have 2 standard mobo's in them and sync all data between cpu's, so if one dies the whole system is still alive.
What I need is a simple mirroring system for two failover servers, without single point of failure.
What kind of servers? The best method will depend on the type of server.
It's very frustrating. DFS and FRS seem to work just fine under Windows, so why hasn't Linux got it?
Because you haven't paid for it yet, be it in cash or time.
Re:What is a SAN (Score:4, Informative)
A SAN can be a single large block device. The specifics will depend on the SAN, but you should be able to arrange the disks in any RAID configuration (or none), and present 1 or more block devices to 1 or more servers.
When I manipulate a sector on the disk, the SAN is actually manipulating the same sector on multiple identical drives.
Not necessarily the same sectors, depending on whether we're talking physical or logical sectors, but basically that's correct.
So from this standpoint, it sounds similar to RAID, except for the redundant power supplies.
Well most servers come with 2+ power supplies for fail-over, so even the redundant power supplies isn't different.
From the description, it sounds like SAN has another important difference from RAID. The SAN, redundant power supplies, redundant drives, and all, is a separate system from the computer.
There are disk arrays you can buy that direct attach to computers. These too would be separate units from the computer (benefit: if the computer dies, reattach the pack to a separate computer. A lot simpler than having to remove/insert each disk).
Unlike RAID, which pretends to be a single block device, the SAN can be accessed by multiple CPU's.
Depending on the RAID device, you can configure multiple logical devices across multiple physical devices. Dell's PERC's generally allow this (ok, not across separate disks, but if there are 10 disks, you could have 2 sets of 5 disks in RAID5).
A RAID device can be accessed by multiple CPU's in the case of a 2+ way server. So, you mean multiple servers, not multiple servers.
A SAN can be connected to many servers - 64, 128, 1024, etc, depending on the SAN and your budget.
(Therefore, you don't want to put an ordinary filesystem onto it, such as Ext3.) Therefore the design of GFS, which allows multiple cpu's to concurrently manipulate the filesystem.
Yes, the FS will depend on the use. If you can hookup multiple servers to the same disk, then you need an FS that can handle that. If you are planning on dynamically growing the device, then you need an FS that can handle that.
Do I fundamentally misunderstand?
Parts you understand. A SAN also has many other uses, like disk consolidation, functionality, and management, but these issues and uses will really depend on your environment.
For example, if you generally buy a server with a bunch of disk in case you ever need it, then you probably have a big range of % use on your servers. A SAN lets you consolidate that disk space in one place. Perhaps you have one server running at 30% total disk use, another at 99%, and another at 50%. Would be nice to dynamically allocate the disk from the unused servers to the disk on the 99%, but barring inefficient methods, this is very, very difficult. With a SAN, i can grow those disk devices on the fly and make sure each server always has X amount free (probably around 20% free space). When you're talking about many servers, or lots of unused space, this can add up to a big ROI.
Or, let's say you use a proprietary FS like Veritas for your Enterprise servers. Buying automatic mirroring for those servers may add up to a lot of money, so instead invest once in your SAN's disk mirroring product and use this for those servers (yeah this may be just as or more costly, depending on your SAN).
And there are other functionalities, like server independant snapshots and mirrors - your FS may handle snaps or mirroring, but can a separate server mount that? With a SAN, that can be possible. Imagine your webserver mounts a RO mirror of the data that is only changeable via a more protected server. You could do that via NFS, but it would come at a speed cost. With the SAN, you're not limited to the
Re:executive summary? (Score:2, Informative)
For example, the boxes I used to work with were dual host adapter boxes with the RAID5 containers in RAID1 setup. Each box+adapter has two NICs, going to different switches. Each box has a three PSUs, going to different UPSs.
Using a simple setup like this, there simply is no single point of failure. Apart from the room they are in, obviously.
Cheap? No. Avoiding single points of failure completely
Immediate? (Score:2)
Not quite, but OpenAFS would be a good option (Score:2)
I still think that OpenAFS is generally a better solution in these areas, but who knows?
Re:Not quite, but OpenAFS would be a good option (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not quite, but OpenAFS would be a good option (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:executive summary? (Score:5, Informative)
The GFS software lets files be stored in a single file system shared by numerous servers. The information can reside on servers themselves or on a storage area network.
The software is used to speed data access and replicate information so it's still available even if individual machines fail. It's useful for the two conventional types of clusters: groups of machines linked so one can take over for another in case of a problem, and groups linked as part of a sprawling supercomputer.
Red Hat GFS is tuned to work with Oracle's 9i RAC, database software that can spread across multiple clustered machines, and work with Red Hat's cluster software for ensuring services remain available despite computer problems.
Re:executive summary? (Score:2)
Which makes it a direct competitor to Oracle's own GPLed Linux clustered filesystem, OCFS. Interesting.
Re:executive summary? (Score:3, Informative)
It also helps virtualisation (Score:4, Interesting)
The second really interesting use is with virtualisation - imagine if you want all your S/390 virtual machines to share the same bsse file systems for efficiency (given the price IBM charge for mainframe disks
Newbie (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Newbie (Score:2)
yes, that's actually the basic idea (Score:4, Informative)
Now if, after running for some time, one of the machines gets coffee spilled on it and dies, GFS will automatically route around it. The result is that a slashdotter will not be aware of the failure, and still get the video.
Meanwhile you can fix the problem and bring the downed machine back on-line again.
Re:yes, that's actually the basic idea (Score:5, Informative)
The best way to deliver this to the user (in this case, the slashdotter) would be to replicate this content onto a group of web servers using rsync(1). Each machine serves the content off of its local drive and can use its memory to cache/buffer the disk reads. In front of the web servers, you would put a wire-speed load balancer, such as an Nortel Alteon content switch [nortelnetworks.com] or a Foundry Networks ServerIron switch [foundrynet.com]. The load balancer, when configured properly will take care of monitoring your web servers. It would take me too long to explain it here, but these switches are sophisticated enough that they can take failed webservers out of the load-balancing group for everything from a ping failure to a content failure.
The key to designing web architectures is simplicity. Web serving does not need fancy clustering software or distributed filesystems. Very few web sites will not fit on the hard disk of your average 1U server. Keep it simple and put the intelligence up front in the switch.
What is GFS good for? Many things! It would be great for a large computational cluster that had a very large (multi-terabyte) dataset and high disk I/O requirements. Anything that has a requirement to provide one or more very large files to a number of cluster nodes would be perfect for GFS.
Chris
Re:Newbie (Score:4, Informative)
Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Normally I'd ask what's the BFD? but most people would just LOL. Then other people would probably want to know if it comes on DVD or FTP, but the FAQ will explain it JIT. Now what would be really cool would be a PDA that would run it with an RGB display, but it might need extra RAM.
HTH.
OTE: BFD (Score:2, Funny)
Normally I'd ask what's the BFD?
BFD is a library from the GNU project for manipulating ELF object code files, among other formats.
(OTE: off-topic excursion, PWB)
(PWB: posted without bonus)
Re:Really? (Score:3, Funny)
BTW, IIRC the CIA and NSA claim it was used by the AoE to make WMD to drop on GWB and the USA, and was only GPL'd after it was liberated in OIF. TGIF!
Re:And there is more... (Score:2)
GFS is cool! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:GFS is cool, but (Score:2)
Is it primarily that it is more useful for highly parallel computing systems so that the actual nodes can share the actual block devices?
Re:GFS is cool, but (Score:2, Interesting)
Performance. Simplicity. Adopting AFS is kindof an all-or-nothing proposition - we looked into it, but it would mean retraining a _lot_ of physicists, some of whom make computer geeks look like social geniuses.
Is it primarily that it is more useful for highly parallel computing systems so that the actual nodes can share the actual block devices?
Yes, and it does it relatively elegantly. PVFS, the main alternative, is fundamentally a kludge IMHO and co
Couldn't resist (Score:2)
Sorry, ROMIO is only supported by the Microsoft Joliet extensions, which you will need to port to GFS....
GFS defined... (Score:5, Informative)
Red Hat Global File System (GFS) is an open source, POSIX-compliant cluster file system and volume manager that executes on Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers attached to a storage area network (SAN). It works on all major server and storage platforms supported by Red Hat. The leading (and first) cluster file system for Linux, Red Hat GFS has the most complete feature set, widest industry adoption, broadest application support, and best price/performance of any Linux cluster file system today.
Red Hat GFS allows Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers to simultaneously read and write to a single shared file system on the SAN, achieving high performance and reducing the complexity and overhead of managing redundant data copies. Red Hat GFS has no single point of failure, is incrementally scalable from one to hundreds of Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers, and works with all standard Linux applications.
Red Hat GFS is tightly integrated with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and distributed through Red Hat Network. This simplifies software installation, updates, and management. Applications such as Oracle 9i RAC, and workloads in cluster computing, file, web, and email serving can become easier to manage and achieve higher throughput and availability with Red Hat GFS.
Highlights
Performance
Red Hat GFS helps Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers achieve high IO throughput for demanding applications in database, file, and compute serving. Performance can be incrementally scaled for hundreds of Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers using Red Hat GFS and storage area networks constructed with iSCSI or Fibre Channel.
Availability
Red Hat GFS has no single-point-of-failure: any server, network, or storage component can be made redundant to allow continued operations despite failures. In addition, Red Hat GFS has features that allow reconfigurations such as file system and volume resizing to be made while the system remains on-line to increase system availability. Red Hat Cluster Suite can be used with GFS to move applications in the event of server failure or for routine server maintenance.
Ease of Management
Red Hat GFS allows fast, scalable, high througput access to a single shared file system, reducing management complexity by removing the need for data copying and maintaining multiple versions of data to insure fast access. Integrated with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (AS, ES, and WS) and Cluster Suite, delivered via Red Hat Network, and supported by Red Hat's award winning support team, Red Hat GFS is the world's leading cluster file system for Linux.
Advanced features
Scalable to hundreds of Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers. Integrated with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and delivered via Red Hat Network, comprehensive service offerings, up to 24x7 with one-hour response. Supports Intel X86, Intel Itanium2, AMD AMD64, and Intel EM64T architectures. Works with Red Hat Cluster Suite to provide high availability for mission-critical applications. Quota system for cluster-wide storage capacity management. Direct IO support allows databases to achieve high performance without traditional file system overheads. Dynamic multi-pathing to route around switch or HBA failures in the storage area network. Dynamic capacity growth while the file system remains on-line and available. Can serve as a scalable alternative to NFS. Product Information Supported on Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS, ES, and WS. Red Hat Cluster Suite support available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3. Support for a wide variety of Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage area network products from leading switch, HBA, and storage array vendors. Mature, industry-leading, field-proven, open source cluster file system.
`GFS' (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:`GFS' (Score:2)
there's also an "OpenGFS" project that was forked from GFS when it was open source. that project seems dead (last update in 2003)
Re:`GFS' (Score:2)
Since the other GFS came first, I suggest Google rename their system 'GooFS'. The marketing guys'll love it!
Good Distributed Filesystems? (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, NFS has issues with security (relying on numeric user id's sent by the client is a nightmare). Locking is problematic. Different versions have severe compatibility issues.
I forget the issues with AFS, but it's successor, Coda, seems not very mature, although it is one of the more promising filesystems out there. InterMezzo is a more complete and robust implementation of the Coda featureset, but is Linux-only.
SFS looks very promising (simple, but effective), but requires NFSv3 clients and servers to interact with the kernel.
None of these filesystems allows regular users to access remote filesystems (superuser privileges are required for mounting) like with FTP.
What's so hard about getting this stuff right? And can we please have kernels that support userspace filesystem drivers (or, better, any drivers)? (Yes, I know about LUFS and FUSE).
Ok, rant over. Thoughtful comments, corrections and pointers appreciated.
Re:Good Distributed Filesystems? (Score:2)
Re:Good Distributed Filesystems? (Score:2)
We already have SSH, and it can be used for accessing remote files (e.g. through the sftp command). All there is to making it a remote filesystem is to write a kernel module. Locking works. Authentication works. With a little extra effort, a generic system can be set up to allow for disconnected operation over any filesystem.
Of course, using SSH is heavy on resources, so it would still be better to have the encryption optional.
Re:Good Distributed Filesystems? (Score:2)
Yeah, something like smbfs for mounting samba shares. A lot of times, you don't need a lot of speed and you just want to allow mounting without adding a new service. Something running off ssh would be great.
fishio on konqueror does this, allowing you to browse a remode ssh account like it was a local folder, but I don't think you could mount it as a normal home directory or fs.
Re:Good Distributed Filesystems? (Score:2)
No problem! From the FAQ:
Is it possible to use another command instead of ssh?
Yes. See --cmd shfsmount option.
You can tell ssh to not use encryption or use some other command entirely as the transport.
Re:Good Distributed Filesystems? (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good Distributed Filesystems? (Score:2)
Re:Good Distributed Filesystems? (Score:2, Interesting)
On the other hand, if GFS doesn't do something intelligent about security, then we're left with the same fundamental problem that NFS has. Namely, we need to presume that it operates within a local environment in which all users on the i
Could be worse than that (Score:2)
Personally, I don't think that GFS *can* do much about security, nor so I think it is a replacement for AFS. GFS may ONLY be useful for redundant cluster applications, such as the mentioned Oracle 9i RAC or for PVM/MPI stuff.
So for that sort of thing, GFS might be g
Re:Good Distributed Filesystems? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, and they don't cook your dinner for you either, but if that's what you're expecting then you're completely missing the point of what a cluster filesystem is for. Granted, the name "Global File System" is a misnomer, but it has been a misnomer for several years now and if you have anything more than a dilettante's interest in this you should know what GFS really does.
Yeah, everything's easy when you're not the one doing it. Tell me what you do, and I'll tell you how wimpy that is. If you think that maintaining consistency across multiple machines in a cluster without compromising performance is easy, you're a fool. If you think that high availability of any form is easy, then you're an idiot. If you think putting those two together doesn't lead to an exponential increase in complexity and hence difficulty, you're a moron.
If you want a filesystem stub (not really a complete filesystem) that lets you access files stored half-way around the world over a standard protocol, look into one of the many efforts based on WebDAV. If you want a true global filesystem, look into OceanStore so you can appreciate some of the problems that are involved. If you want to be able to change the filesystem namespace without being root, look into Plan 9. Do your own googling. None of those are what GFS is about.
Re:Good Distributed Filesystems? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, I did not mean to suggest that cooking up a distributed filesystem with good consistency and performance is easy, just that, seeing how long people have been at it, I would expect the state of the art to be a lot better than it is now. It's not like distributed filesystems aren't useful, so there
Re:Good Distributed Filesystems? (Score:2)
Would be found in any good book on distributed filesystems, you mean. Good solutions are not known for the general wide-area case, and therefore the good books have not been written. Anybody who seriously studies this area - as I do - has to rely on tracking down the relevant papers, often by finding them in the bibliographies of subsequent papers. Sometimes the sear
Re:Good Distributed Filesystems? (Score:2)
I would think that leases (server will send you updates for some time, if you keep the file cached longer, renew the lease) do a pretty good job at maintaining consistency without being prohibitively resource-intensive. Of course, it depends on the way the content is used, so the best solution is probably flexibility: specify the best behavior in case the system doesn't guess it.
an idea whose time has come ... and gone (Score:4, Interesting)
Why do you say it's time has already gone? (Score:2)
I think you are likely correct--typical IT shops in your average enterprise will not find thi
Re:Why do you say it's time has already gone? (Score:2)
What about security? (Score:4, Interesting)
First Linux distro with GFS (Score:3, Interesting)
Difference between GFS, NFS and AFS? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Difference between GFS, NFS and AFS? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know much about AFS, but two significant differences between NFS and GFS:
GFS supports a global file locking interface; NFS does not. So for instance you can have a farm of web servers whose cgi scripts access/update shared files atomically, or multiple database servers which share the same database file, locking individual records to perform simultaneous INSERT/UPDATE transactions.
GFS supports host-granularity redundancy and failover; NFS does not. So if your NFS server bursts into flame, the
Finally :) (Score:2)
I was hoping they'd do this. I think (IIRC) the original GFS for linux was (or was intended to be?) open source, then Sistina changed their minds and made it proprietary and commercial. So then there was an OpenGFS project, which never got off the ground. Now RedHat bought Sistina and they're GPLing the code.
Re:Finally :) (Score:2)
Can it handle millions of small files? (Score:2)
Chip H.
Re:Can it handle millions of small files? (Score:2)
GFS has a troubled license history (Score:4, Informative)
This move by Red Hat gives new life (and resources) to GFS beyond the OpenGFS Project [sourceforge.net] that has also been continuing to work on the code.
Another recent development in this area is HP's decision to productize Lustre [tmcnet.com]. Lustre [lustre.org] is perhaps the most prominent and promising HPC filesystem.
SGI also announced [linuxelectrons.com] a major deal last week involving Luster:
The new file system is expected to sustain write rates in excess of 8GB/sec and demonstrate single client write rates of more than 600MB/sec. To achieve this performance, the new file system will leverage Lustre, an open source, object-oriented file system with development lead by Cluster File System Inc., with funding from DOE. Lustre currently is used on four of the top five supercomputers, including the PNNL cluster based on 1,900 Intel® Itanium® 2 processors.
Re:GFS has a troubled license history (Score:2)
It's been pretty quiet regarding OpenGFS lately. Now it is of course possible that they join forces and work on the GPL GFS.
But Red Hat is hoping for inclusion of GFS into the Linux kernel. This would be the best solution, as it would give it a larger developer base, keep the filesystem evolving in sync with the kernel and preventing bitrot even in the unlikely situation
Re:GFS has a troubled license history (Score:2)
SGI's CXFS is a pile of crap.. I hope this thing with HP provides something that doesn't suck.
We recently ran into a bug in CXFS that would cause group readable files to not be readable by the g
How will this affect IBM's GPFS (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How will this affect IBM's GPFS (Score:3, Interesting)
Dang it, mistyped the Lustre URL... (Score:2)
Re:How will this affect IBM's GPFS (Score:2)
Red Hat sure has been busy this week, taking on Sun with thier open source java, and now IBM. Whatever the case Red Hat has become agressive and might be a "major" player if it's not already. BTW I'm surprised Slashdot didn't cover that story about Red Hat's eclipse being compiled without suns JVM, here is a snippet from this page [linuxjournal.com]
Instead of running on top of a virtual machine the way Java programs usually do--although that can still be done i
... compared to InterMezzo, CODA or oMFS? (Score:2)
Re:... compared to InterMezzo, CODA or oMFS? (Score:3, Informative)
GFS instead gives everyone access to the same disk at the same time rather than replication. Both methods work well for different data sets - so yes GFS and oMFS are similar
Re:... compared to InterMezzo, CODA or oMFS? (Score:5, Informative)
Now imagine a filesystem designed for servers that allows them to access the filesystem at a block level directly via the shared bus. Let's say a parallel SCSI buss (or any bus that allows more than one host, e.g. iSCSI, Fibre Channel, Firewire). Imagine how fast it would be to access a shared disk over Fibre Channel! The problem is that if two servers mount the filesystem at the same time it would normally currupt the filesystem. People with SAN's (Storage Area Networks) solve this problem by making mini virtual hard drives and setting ACL's on them so only one host can access that virtual hard drive at a time. This could lead to a waste of space.
GFS solves the SAN problem by using a Distributed Lock Manager (DLM). No one host is the server of the filesystem, but writes/locks are coordinated via the DLM. Now multiple hosts *can* share a virtual hard drive or real block device and not corrupt the filesystem. If a host dies, no problem, there is no server for the filesystem!
Let's give an example. Say you have a firewire enclosure. Now plug that firewire hard drive into two computers. This, by the way, may still require a patch to sbp so that Linux will tell the enclosure to allow both hosts to talk to it at the same time. Now that the hard drive is talking to both computers you could run GFS on it and access the data at the block level by both systems. Now start serving email via IMAP (load balanced), *both hot*, no standby. Now kill a box. IMAP still works. No remounting, no resycronization.
Pretty amazing if you ask me! This technology is pretty rare. IBM has GPFS. SGI has Clustered XFS. Both are pretty expensive. GFS? RedHat just re-GPL'd it! Microsoft? Ummm. I think they are just now getting logical volume management.
GFS also has nice features like journaling (kinda required for this sorta thing), ACL's, quotas, and online resizing.
Now tell me Linux isn't enterprise!
Single point of failure? (Score:2)
People hype the benefits of centralized management all the time. Not much better than "single point of failure" if you really think about it. One system administrator = "single point of failure", many admins = multiple points of failure.
We're all living in on Planet Earth. The odds of a catastrophic astronomical event in our lifetimes is n
Re:Single point of failure? (Score:2)
Spoken like someone who has never needed to run a real high-end enterprise system. Most typical enterprise systems need to be running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, with little or no downtime AT ALL. Downtime tends to have awful consequences that range from losing significant amounts of money (a telecom billing database system I once helped set up would lose the telco the equivalent of about US$10,000 every minute it was down), to causing mayhem, death, and destruction (the canonical exam
Re:Single point of failure? (Score:2)
[1]# rm -rf / opt/stufftouninstall
"Oops!"
No matter what you still have to trust something/someone in the end. The entity you HAVE to trust is the entity that can break policy/things.
[1] Sure there'd be backups, but it's still gonna hurt a fair bit
I/O is already a bottleneck! (Score:2)
Now if the shared storage is a rackfull of ram (flash or dram + batteries), that's something completely different. Then such a shared filesystem can really show its muscles. Of course, if the locking and fencing system can keep up with the demands
See also OpenGFS and OCFS (Score:4, Informative)
These may go away since their major reason for existing was that Sistina had closed up source for GFS.
Thanks RedHat. With LVM2, GFS, my EMC SAN and my cluster of Gentoo boxes (ya, sorry 'bout that part) I'm going to have lots of fun.
Too lazy to check (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it does. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Free for $2,200? (Score:4, Insightful)
Still needs to be said - Opensource means free as in speech
Re:Free for $2,200? (Score:5, Informative)
Though in this case, you can download GFS and all the related software for free. Just go to the
cluster [redhat.com] project page.
Re:Free for $2,200? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Free for $2,200? (Score:2)
Re:Free for $2,200? (Score:2)
Re:Free for $2,200? (Score:2)
That is incorrect, the source must be available to third parties as well
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
* a) You must cause the modified files to carry p
Re:Free for $2,200? (Score:2, Informative)
Re-read what you just posted.
It says the *license* under which you distribute it must make it available to third parties. The GPL does not require you to *distribute* the source code to anyone except those who receive the product in executable form. But because it is licensed to third parties, anyone in possession of the source code *may* distribute it to third parties.
-- TTK
Re:Free for $2,200? (Score:2)
1. If you distribute GPL'ed source code, you have basically satisified your GPL requirements.
2. If you distribute GPL'ed binaries, and distribute the source with them, you have satisfifed the GPL.
3. If you distribute GPL'ed binaries without source, you basically have to make the source available to third parties.
Re:Free for $2,200? (Score:2)
The Microsoft Effect (Score:4, Informative)
While it is amusing to see a MCSE struggling to configure Postgres or MaxDB (which can be a little tricky) and complaining about the lack of a GUI (I didn't have the heart to find and install the various GUIs for them...heh), it does not sit well with the PHB to see labor costs skyrocket with no discernable work being done (from their perspective).
The moral of this rant is: even though it is free software, that does not automatically mean that you should not have to pay for the expertise to setup, run, and maintane it. RedHat (and the other commercial distros) have excellent service and tend to service smaller companies at the same level MS only does for much larger companies. PHBs should be looking for gain in long term licensing costs and flexibility. No lock-in, no artificially driven need to upgrade, no technological sea change forced upon you.
Re:Free for $2,200? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't you know the difference between "free" and "free"?
If so, let me explain:
1) Internet Explorer is free, for instance, as you don't pay for it;
2) Internet Explorer is not free because you cannot have its source to modify and make it more secure;
3) Professional distros like Red Hat and Suse are not free because you have to pay to have it;
4) These same professional distros are free because you can compile the source yourself whenever you can.
Got it? If you don't understand this, you'll might believe next time someone says "Linux is not free". Don't be fooled! It is free!
Now, the relevant quote is:
"We're looking for people help us work on this project so we can eventually get it included into the Linux kernel. Comments, suggestions, patches, and testers are more than welcome."
See the part that mentions "get it included into the Linux kernel"? It means it will be free.
Now, these superb guys at RH really should charge for a professional product with support. Soon, very soon, they might discover they must do what Sun does: have a personal low cost (maybe gratis) version, so that people can tweak it, use at home, report bugs etc.
I, for one, thank them for all the fish and get the message that everyone must contribute, no matter how little, and not just wait for them to make things for us.
And don't use English to discuss such things. Or, better yet, change English so that it becomes fit for use. I suggest stop using free to mean gratis. Just use gratis, like in "There's no gratis lunch".
Re:Isnt free. So why do I care? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sorry you're not exposed to ERP and enterprise-level work, but many of us are. Slashdot's plugs are not exclusively for free-as-in-beer projects.
Re:Slight Correction (Score:2)
Did you even read the blurb?
"Red Hat has released GFS under the GPL"
Re:Isnt free. So why do I care? (Score:3, Informative)
Not to YOU of course, because you have no need for such things.
Remember, it's Free Software. That means you can pay Red Hat for it and get their support. Don't want that, fine. Now the source is available, so you can download and compile it yourself, or print it out and wipe your ass with it. Or maybe your favorite distro will download it, package it, enhance it, and include it in their next release.
Re:Babbling? Where is the GPL link then. (Score:3, Informative)
No, that's to get a supported version. If you would actually read the announement linked to in the story, you'd get a link to where you can get the source code from cvs.
Re:That exists for years already! (Score:2)
Re:That exists for years already! (Score:3, Informative)
NFS on the other hand can be accessed f
Re:Redhat vs. Novell (Score:5, Insightful)
But let's just focus on the most recent efforts of both companies. Realistically no distro is going to include Yast, but it's still a very good move since it will allow SuSE ISO images to be distributed without the existing restricitions in the future and I'm thankful to Novell for it. On the other hand, Red Hat buying Sistina for $31 million and setting their arguably only asset GFS free and then working on including it in the Linux kernel proper directly also benefits Novell and other Linux distributors.
"lately has been locking down their Linux offerings"? How about giving some concrete examples. Last time I checked RHEL was 100% open source and available for download, and so is Fedora Core for the home user. SuSE has been cleaning up their act since they got purchased by Novell, but to play them against Red Hat, who has been completely 100% behind open source since day one, as somehow a more free alternative is laughable.