[OpenAFS] OpenAFS vs NFSv4?

[Ted Anderson]

On 4/28/2003 08:02, Nathan Neulinger wrote:
> Support for a reasonable number of platforms.
> Location transparency.
> Transparent on-the-fly moves of data.
> Single namespace automatically. 
> Built in snapshotting mechanism.

To Nathan's list of AFS advantages, I'd add:
   + Directory caching (NFSv4's delegation doesn't work for dirs)
   + Volumes
   + Simpler, per-directory ACLs
To be fair we should also add AFS negatives:
   - Proprietary data format (NFS exports regular file systems)
   - Large file support
   - Byte range and session locking
And NFSv4 plusses and minuses:
   + Kerberos 5 and LIPKEY authentication
   + Stronger stream encryption (DES vs FCrypt)
   + Complex, but Windows compatible, per-file ACLs
   - Many useful features are optional
   - Immature: Available in alpha-quality implementations only

I'm sure there are many more items that could be added to each list.

I would also emphasize the point that Daniel Clark raised about NFSv4: 
many of the interesting features that move it towards AFS are optional 
(e.g. delegation, but not strong authentication).  So, as NFSv4 is 
deployed it will be important to see which features really become 
wide-spread.

Ted Anderson