[OpenAFS] Read-only replication

[Jaap Winius]

Hi folks,

Here's a hypothetical question regarding the replication of AFS volumes:

In an organization where it is only necessary for an administrator to  
either give users read-write access to volumes, or no access at all,  
what would be the advantage of creating any read-only replicas, beyond  
those for the standard volumes at the root of the AFS namespace?

This subject is confusing to me, because I've learned that once a  
client has encountered a read-write mount point, it becomes biased  
towards accessing only read-write replicas beyond it, ignoring any and  
all perfectly usable read-only volumes that may be available.

Of course, read-only replicas with hourly releases can be used as a  
safety net, allowing data to be more quickly recovered in the event of  
a failure, but if that's viewed as an unnecessary measure, then what  
other reasons reasons might there be for replicating any volumes?

Thanks,

Jaap