[OpenAFS-devel] AFS + GFS = crazy?

[John Hascall]

For a while I've been toying with an idea in my mind
and I thought hey, maybe you can dissuade me... :)

It seems to me that it would be in interesting idea
make something that looks like an AFS fileserver on
the 'rx side' but which doesn't actually have any
/vicepx disks, but is instead very similar to a
Google File System "master server" which parcels the
actual file bits out to a series of GFS "chunkservers".

The idea behind GFS is that these file chunks are
stored on multiple (N, usually 3) chunkservers -- so
you can lose N-1 of them and still be up and have
your data.  And the chunkservers could even be
geographically separated.

Further I wonder if this would obviate or greatly
diminish the need for tape-based backups (which
I don't know about you, but we have grown to loath).


So, totally stupid or what?

John