Michael DeMan (OA) wrote:
Actually it appears that FreeNAS is forking with planned support for both linux
(we can only speculate on the preferred backing file system) and FreeBSD with
ZFS as preferred backing file system.
In regards to OpenSolaris advocacy for using OpenSolaris vs. FreeBSD, I'm all
ears if anybody is bold enough to clutter up this mailing list with it.
A quick start from my perspective (and this is no way complete) would be:
Basically, I have a need for a modern file systems with snapshots both for
internal purposes and to support vmware instances. De-depluciation is a nice
idea, but given our size, the balance between risk and dollars makes it easier
to just have more disk space.
Args for FreeBSD + ZFS:
- Limited budget
- We are familiar with managing FreeBSD.
- We are familiar with tuning FreeBSD.
- Licensing model
Args against FreeBSD + ZFS:
- Stability (?)
- Possibly performance (although we have limited needs for CIFS)
Args for OpenSolaris + ZFS:
- Stability
Args against OpenSolaris + ZFS:
- Hardware compatibility
- Lack of knowledge for tuning and associated costs for training staff to learn
'yet one more operating system' they need to support.
- Licensing model
I'd have to go back over the CDDL, but my understanding is that since
ZFS is CDDL, the inclusion of CDDL zfs code in the FreeBSD FreeNAS
setup means that you have essentially the same licensing model as the
all-CDDL OpenSolaris. In any case, the CDDL is very liberal (it's a
variation of the MPL), so the differences should be very minor in terms
of real impact on a business model (that is, vs a BSD-license).
Tuning for Solaris is definitely a bit more wizardly magic than for
FreeBSD, but there are significant mitigating factors:
(1) there is now very good [if very dense] documentation on the tunables
(and what they mean) for much of the Solaris kernel. (e.g.
http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0131482092 )
(2) Most tunable needs in something like FreeNAS apply to ZFS, which
means that BOTH FreeBSD and OpenSolaris would need to be tuned;
therefore, there is little difference between using either OS in terms
of tunables.
(3) Solaris itself is generally very, very good at NOT needing to be
tuned. IMHO, it's probably the Best OS in these terms, meaning that the
need to tune is significantly lower than other OSes, and thus, knowing
HOW to tune is generally much less important.
One other advantage of using OpenSolaris over FreeBSD is simply First
Mover - that is, fixes show up first in OpenSolaris, it has a much
larger user community around ZFS, and the primary engineers are using
OpenSolaris as their development and testing platforms.
I would also place the COMSTAR stuff as a major reason for a NAS-project
to consider OpenSolaris over other OSes. It's just soooo nice. :-)
That all said, in your specific case where you have significant in-house
FreeBSD knowledge, I would stick with it for the time being. The
differences for something like FreeNAS are relatively minor, and it's
better to Go With What You Know. Exploring OpenSolaris for a future
migration would be good, but for right now, I'd stick to FreeBSD.
--
Erik Trimble
Java System Support
Mailstop: usca22-123
Phone: x17195
Santa Clara, CA
Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800)
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