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> I?d rather find a software solution that leverages the existing cluster
> hardware (ie, the inexpensive disk drives I?ve already got connected to the
> real servers) instead of purchasing a network appliance, or locally
> attaching devices to all the nodes in the cluster.
I think you are going to have to try GFS or Intermezzo.
> How does Ultra Monkey solve the cluster file system problem? (I guess
> Piranha?s solution is not out yet?)
It doesn't solve it, I don't believe. It doesn't even try.
> Someone on this list said CODA is not ready for prime time? Can you share
> your experience why? The CODA web page says, ?Perhaps Coda can become a
> popular, widely used and freely available distributed file system.? That
> sounds good.
Let me count the ways.
>From the FAQ (http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/coda-fom/cache/10.html):
How stable and usable is Coda?
This is difficult to answer. If you want to try this with 5-15
knowledgeable users, who would like to learn something and are
knowledgeable computer users, you are probably OK if you do your
backups.
Installing a large network of 100 users or so, is right now not a good
idea. We are aware that it would be very desirable to get the
system in a state where this is easily possible, and reasonable
progress has been made. We have to cract several hard problems, and
many minor ones, we hope that our next release will be a big step
forward.
As of version 4.7 the data corruption that was happening on the servers
is gone - but of course, many new problems might still come
up.
(8 Dec 1998)
NOTE: I was on the Coda mailing list for a while, and I did not see any
evidence that this was any less true 1.5 years later.
I spent weeks/months looking at this, and finally just decided I woiuld
not even waste my time trying to implement it. Synchronization after
a crash seemed to be problematic at best. A lot of the stuff seems
quite old - 1996-1998. The Coda list is active, but not a lot of it
seems to be reflected on the official web page.
>From my brief look at GFS, it seems to be a lot more promising.
Intermezzo might be worth a look. I notice that Coda is NOT listed
on http://www.linux-ha.org uncder "Filesystem technologies"; Coda is
listed further down the page under "Related Linux Links".
You definitely don't have to take my word for it - feel free to
investigate further yourself. I personally found that the Coda
mailing list was much more useful than poking about in the web
pages.
--
John Cronin
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