Re: [9fans] Is 9Fans dead or alive

[Nickolas Peter <nickpeteromalley@gmail.com>]

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Brantley,

Wow, that's really impressive. Thanks for sharing. Would you say that
Supermicro hardware supports Plan 9 well, or did it take a lot of hacking
and driver development? I have a Supermicro 1U sitting in my uncles
basement — I might go grab it and set it up as a fileserver.

Nick

On Wednesday, August 24, 2016, Brantley Coile <brantleycoile@me.com> wrote:

> Nick,
>
> Coraid, Inc sold network storage systems that consisted of our software
> running on more or less stock Supermicro hardware. We invented the
> ATA-over-Ethernet block storage network protocol. We sold almost
> $100,000,000 worth of stuff, somewhere north of 10,000 units, all running
> Plan 9.
>
> I left Coraid the company in 2014 over disagreements with management on
> the direction of the company, and started SouthSuite Software. Coraid, Inc.
> was foreclosed on by the bank in 2015 and I was subsequently able to
> purchase the good parts of the old Coraid, including the brand name
> “Coraid.” Now, Coraid the brand lives on as a product of SouthSuite
> Software.
>
> Now, we license that same software, or our continuing evolution of it, to
> run on Supermicro hardware our customer buys themselves at a big savings.
> We also support the existing Coraid equipment that is in the field.
>
> You can check us out at http://www.coraid.com
>
> Thanks for asking.
>
> P. S. I still code exclusively in C and see no reason for me to change.
>
>   Brantley
>
> > On Aug 24, 2016, at 9:00 AM, Nickolas Peter <nickpeteromalley@gmail.com
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Brantley,
> >
> > I am by no means an experienced developer or Plan 9 user, so I can
> hardly speak from the same experience level as most (I assume) of the
> posters on this list. I only recently found myself very interested in Plan
> 9, C, and embedded systems. As of now, I only run 9front as a learning
> environment on series of virtual machines.
> >
> > It's really intriguing to hear that there's commercial hardware running
> Plan 9, and very motivating to see that there are still people utilizing
> Plan 9 in some way as a primary system.
> >
> > When you mentioned using Plan 9 in your shipping software, were you
> referring to some internal software that you use to handle shipping
> hardware to customers, or software that you sell to customers (say, to run
> on your hardware)? I'm interested to hear more about it, if you're at
> liberty to share.
> >
> >
> > Nick
> >
> >
> > On Wednesday, August 24, 2016, Brantley Coile <brantleycoile@me.com
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > Some general comments.
> >
> > It’s good to see it used in at least a few places. It’s too good a
> system to be the only one using it. But I will until providence completely
> forces me to do otherwise, which I don’t anticipate.
> >
> > I’m really lucky to be able to use the system, especially in the way it
> was envisioned in the 1980’s. My first knowledge of it was when I asked
> Dennis Ritchie what was new. He said that Ken was playing around with the
> concept of union directories. Later, during one of my visits to the Labs,
> in 1988 I think, Dennis gave me a demonstration of the system.
> >
> > One problem with most people who haven’t been as fortunate as I have, is
> they really just need a single system, not a distributed system. While Plan
> 9 makes a better single system for some things than most OSes, it’s really
> not supposed to have local disks at all. It really is designed to be a
> larger distributed timesharing system. At Coraid, we had two setups, one in
> Athens and one in Redwood City, that supported over 100 users in total. And
> without a single dedicated system admin. It was a very part time job,
> mostly for Erik, but Ian Ennis did some as well. It was very easy to manage
> because it was a single machine.
> >
> > As far as I know, SouthSuite is now the only company both using it as a
> development system or shipping software based on Plan 9. Does anyone know
> of any others?
> >
> > Different people choose tools for different reasons and to satisfy
> different requirements the world places on them. I chose to work in
> embedded appliances so I could pick the software I use. The PIX Firewall
> was a bit too early for Plan 9—it was not yet released when I wrote the
> PIX—but it was very much of the spirit, as was the Cisco LocalDirector.
> Soon, we began using the 1995 Plan 9 release and I have been using it
> almost exclusively ever since. I use it as the sole development environment
> and as the base of the products we ship.
> >
> > In spite of our early success at Coraid with the SR, after the VC
> investment the use of Plan 9 became controversial. It’s not what others
> use, and in Sand Land (what else can one call Silicon Valley) that makes
> people nervous. Over my objections, the company attempted to move to Open
> Solaris. It’s a truism that a company that changes operating system goes
> out of business, and Coraid, Inc. again proved that to be true. The reason?
> A small company can’t afford the retooling costs to switch to another
> operating system.
> >
> > But things have turned out well anyway, at least for me and the
> traditional Coraid users. Now I have everything from the trademark to the
> source code and now offer the Coraid product as a software product and can
> support existing Coraid users, both with software updates and with help
> getting their hardware fixed or replaced. We are helping all those folks
> who bought Coraid gear continue to get value of their purchase. One fellow
> sent me a note showing that he’s been up over 2,000 days without rebooting.
> There’s never a reason to fork-lift an SR.
> >
> > I like to think we do a good job, but our performance, efficiency and
> low cost is all made possible by the superior system that was developed by
> the folks at the Labs from 1987 thru 2002.
> >
> >   Brantley
>
>
>

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