[OpenAFS] Transitioning from IBM Transarc to OpenAFS Help

[Andrew Bacchi]

We migrated from AIX/Transarc to Linux/OpenAFS about 2 years ago.  I 
chose method 1 to make a gradual transition over the course of a 
summer.  For a few weeks I had a mixed cell with both platforms in 
production.  I did not have any problems with database corruption and 
all DB and file servers talked to each other without incident.

Creating a new cell would have caused more problems for the user base.  
The migration went easily to the 1.2 .x version series.  I can't speak 
about any later release.

John Harris wrote:

> Greetings OpenAFS Community,
>
> We are *finally* going to transition our production AFS cells from IBM 
> Transarc to the OpenAFS code base.
> I have lots of questions and discussion points and am not sure if this 
> is the appropriate forum to do it in, so I'd first like pointers on 
> where to place it.  I also hope to contact other 
> companies/universities that have made the transition to get some 
> pointers.
>
> Unfortunately, we are running on majorly patched IBM code; meaning the 
> code that branched to OpenAFS a number of years ago has been patched 
> several times on proprietary needs of IBM's customers.  We aren't 
> running anything different than their *latest* release version and 
> I've gathered enough info to know that the problems they patched have 
> already been addressed in OpenAFS, but I assume there are major 
> differences now even in the kernel module...?
>
> Here, we are debating about a couple of ways to transition:
>
> 1) The communications-type folks, you know, the ones who don't 
> actually do any of the work, want to keep the same cell name and just 
> do a one-time massive integration come cut-over day.  They hope to mix 
> and match IBM servers (database and fileservers) and OpenAFS servers 
> (ie: just added OpenAFS servers and rotate the IBM ones out).  To me, 
> this just screams of database corruption and problems; the technical 
> side of our house is really against this (we have enough problems with 
> running on one code-base) for various reasons, but it would be 
> quickest way.  Before I go testing this for weeks on end, does this 
> community have any opinions on it.
>
> 2) The technical-type folks here want to start over with a new cell 
> name so we can slowly transition our production clients over one at a 
> time, have the old cell running for easy cut-back, take the time in 
> the new cell to design the layout and permission scheme the correct 
> way (like no individuals on ACLs, etc.), etc.
>
> This is slower but safer and easier in my opinion.  We have lots to 
> do, like transitioning from the afs4-krb database and K5, moving to 
> newer hardware, etc.
>
> I'd really like some feedback, either in the appropriate forum or 
> personally, on experiences or thoughts.  There isn't a lot publicly 
> out there on a big transition like this.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> John Harris
> University of California, Davis
>
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>

-- 
veritatis simplex oratio est

Andrew Bacchi
Staff Systems Programmer
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
phone: 518 276-6415  fax: 518 276-2809

http://www.rpi.edu/~bacchi/