[OpenAFS] Spinnaker Networks

[Norman P. B. Joseph]

I was pulled into a meeting unexpectedly this week between upper
management and representatives of a Pittsburgh startup called Spinnaker
Networks.  This company was formed with former Fore Systems and Transarc
employees, and their recently announced product is a NAS server with
operating characteristics very similar (no surprise) to AFS.  Clients
would be presented with a CIFS/NFS protocol interface and require no
special client-side software.

Immediately I see the lack of client-side caching as a drawback (not to
mention the price), but it may also solve our issues with byte-range
locking, especially with Windows (Outlook) clients.  And not having to
deal with client-side software (and all that that implies) would be a
big win.

I know this might be slightly off-topic, but I thought this would be a
good arena to solicit opinions about (or possibly experience with) their
product, especially as it compares to an AFS infrastructure.  I would be
happy to take off-list correspondence if you feel this is too far afield
from openafs-info.

Their website is http://spinnakernet.com/

-- 
 Norman Joseph, Systems Engineer           joseph@ctcgsc.org      IC|XC
 Concurrent Technologies Corporation         814/269.2633         --+--
 Global Systems Center                                            NI|KA

  ***  Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle  ***