[Gluster-devel] Roadmap and support questions.

[Steffen Grunewald]

On Tue, May 08, 2007 at 11:45:16PM -0400, Francisco Reyes wrote:
> I am new to Gluster and checking the Wiki I see that one can request 
> features or to have the order changed.

Welcome!

> Where is the best place to ask for features/order change?

Avati asked for suggestions a few days ago (on this list), and there's some
traffic on IRC (#gluster) as well.
For Avati's request, please consult the mailing list archive (May 1).

> I tried to write to support at zresearch.com and got a note that the message 
> was waiting for moderator approval but never got anything beyond that.
> 
> Where I work we are interested in Gluster but we are a FreeBSD shop.
> We would like to see FreeBSD support in the roadmap.

Ahum, are you talking about gluster or glusterfs? Two different cups of tea...

> Also we would like to know if there is , or will be commercial support for 
> the product.

I suppose it's too early to ask for commercial support yet (given that the
first code checkin happened less than 9 months ago)... but nobody will stop
you to ask for it :-)


Talking about requests: I re-read my bunch of printouts last weekend, and
have some suggestions as well (Avati, are you there?):

- to have the servers know about each other helps to avoid - or properly
	handle - split-brain situations. One might imagine networks with
	multiple core switches - if the interconnect between them breaks,
	bad things may happen.
- in any case, and by any means, one should keep the config as symmetrical
	as possible. so if a bunch of servers is configured for unify, afr
	or the like, they should all use the same config (to avoid typos
	in a single copy), and automagically detect that a reference to
	a server can be resolved locally.
	autofs is a good example for such behaviour: a NFS mount would 
	be replaced by a local bind mount.

- the documentation of the translators (as of two weeks ago)needs some 
	restructuring - it's of little use only to know that the translators 
	are there (I can look into the xlator/ subdirectory if I want to know), 
	more important would be a thorough description of the possible options 
	(and trashcan is completely missing). I know, it's a Wiki, and I might
	add stuff myself, but how can I if I don't know?



Cheers
 Steffen

-- 
Steffen Grunewald * MPI Grav.Phys.(AEI) * Am Mühlenberg 1, D-14476 Potsdam
Cluster Admin * http://pandora.aei.mpg.de/merlin/ * http://www.aei.mpg.de/
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