[Novalug] Re: [Ma-linux] What do you know about distributed filesystems?

Jason novalug@jasons.us
Fri Aug 31 18:16:53 EDT 2007


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Angelo Bertolli wrote:
> I was wondering if anyone on the list could point me to some
> filesystems to look at.  In particular, I'm looking for a
> distributed filesystem that:
>
> * Gets its storage from the nodes in the collective, distributing
> the data among them
> * Abstracts the details of where files exist from each user.
> * Presents itself to all of the nodes as a mounted filesystem.
>
> I thought there was a way to do this besides creating an amoeba
> system, but I can't seem to find anything.
[responding only to novalug since I have a different subscription
address for each so I can't do a blanket reply]

Note: I spent four years at Panasas and I moved to NetApp about six
months ago as a systems engineer focusing on distributed computing and
filesystems.

Are you looking for freeware or a commercial product?  In the free
world ther big ones are Lustre (sorta) and Redhat's GFS, which used to
be Sistina.  I say "sorta" for Lustre because while you can download a
free version it's about a year out of date.  For the latest patches,
fixes and updates you have to pay either HP or CFS, who writes the
thing.

If you want to spend money on it you could look at Panasas, NetApp GX,
Isilon, Ibrix, Bluearc, IBM GPFS, SGI CXFS, Polyserve or others I know
less about.  Each has strengths and weaknesses which I'll be happy to
go into if you'd like.

- -Jason

- --
   --- There are no absolute statements.  I'm very probably wrong. ---
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its
limits."
                                        - Albert Einstein
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