Re: [9fans] Petabytes on a budget: JBODs + Linux + JFS

[erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>]

> I think what he means is:
> You are given an inordinate amount of harddrives and some computers to
> house them.
> If plan9 is your only software, how would it be configured overall,
> given that it has to perform as well, or better.
>
> Or put another way: your boss wants you to compete with backblaze using
> only plan9 and (let's say) a _large_ budget.  Go!

forgive me for thinking in ruts ...

i wouldn't ask the question just like that.  the original
plan 9 fileserver had a practically-infinite storage system.
it was a jukebox.  the jukebox ran some firmware that wasn't
plan 9.  (in fact the fileserver itself wasn't running plan 9.)

today, jukeboxes are still ideal in some ways, but they're too
expensive.  i personally think you  can replace the juke
with a set of aoe shelves.  you can treat the shelves as if
they were jukebox platters.  add as necessary.  this gives
you an solid, redundant foundation.

for a naive first implementation targeting plan 9 clients,
i would probablly start with ken's fs.  for coraid's modest
requirements (10e2 users 10e2 terminals 10e1 cpu servers
10e2 mb/s), i built this http://www.quanstro.net/plan9/disklessfs.pdf

i don't see any fundamental reasons why it would not
scale up to petabytes.  i would put work into enabling
multiple cpus. i would imagine it wouldn't be hard to
saturate 2x10gbe with such a setup.  of course, there is
no reason one would need to limit oneself to a single
file server, other than simplicity.

of course this is all a bunch of hand waving without any
money or specific requirements.

- erik