[OpenAFS] Puzzler: lack of access to AFS files

[Rodney M. Dyer]

At 05:26 PM 12/12/2007, Jeffrey Altman wrote:
>I disagree.  We need more resources for testing a broader range of
>scenarios than we currently have available.  The performance
>improvements must be implemented or you absolutely should go find
>something else to use.
>
>If we can't get to the point where operations are as fast or faster than
>NFS or CIFS and if we can't support all of the application operations
>they support and if we can't scale to the number of clients per server
>and requests per second that they can scale to, you might as well go
>find something new.

I understand this, however you need to realize where I'm coming from.  We 
support professors who have research projects that run into the millions of 
dollars.  Many times these people don't know anything about where their 
data files are being saved when they choose "File->Save" from an 
application.  They expect it to work.  We need to be in a position to 
provide the "works" part.  If they save a valuable data file from an 
application one day, then return the next and the application won't load it 
because of some random network change updated a few bytes here or there 
when the file was saved, what do we tell them?  "Oh btw, maybe you should 
keep a local copy on your USB keychain unless the AFS network fails?"  Most 
professors don't spend the extra time to run checksums on their files after 
the save.  This kind of thing doesn't cut it.  I'm the type of 
"professional" sysadmin who's willing to give up 10 percent of my speed for 
guaranteed delivery.  I'm not some young post high school geek who's got a 
job running a smallish home network and constantly boasts product x is 
faster than product y, and that's just uber cool because product y sux'ors!

I am happy with the speed improvements, and I hope we can continue to use 
AFS.  However I need to be able to look at people with a straight face when 
they ask about how well AFS works.

      Speed?  Check
      Scale?  Check
      Functionality?  Check
      Reliablity?  hrm...

Rodney