2004-04-09 17:54:08

by Martin Knoblauch

[permalink] [raw]
Subject:

>I was wondering if for linux or better for a linux filesystem
>there is something like dynamic swapping of files possible.
>For explanation: I habeaccess to an Infinstor via NFS and
>linux is runnig there. This server has a nice funtion I'd
>like to have: if there are files that are not used for a
>specified time (i.e. 30 days) they are moved to another storage
>(disk and after that to an streamer tape) and are replaced
>by some kind of 'link'. So if you look at your directory you
>can see everything that was there, but if you try to open it,
>you have to wait a moment (some seconds if the file was
>swapped to another disk) oder just another moment (some
>minutes if the file is on a tape) and then it restored at
>it's old place.
>

Good description of a HSM (Hierarchical Storage Management)
System.

>So is there anything which provides such a feature? By now
>I have a little script that moves such files out of the way and
>replaces them by links. But restoring is somewhat harder and
>it's not automatic.
>
>Any ideas?
>

Really depends. As far as I know thare are no "free" HSM Systems
out there for Linux The only one that I am faintly familiar with
that runs on Linux is StorNext from ADIC. Definitely not free.

DMF/Irix may now be ported to Linux (Altix/IA64), but I doubt
it will be free.

Sun is most likely not (yet) interested in doing a Linux port
of SAM-FS (there are still Sparc/Solaris Machines to sell).
And it won't be free (my guess).

Tivoli/IBM and UniTree are also sold for Linux. Again "sold" is
the important word

Martin


=====
------------------------------------------------------
Martin Knoblauch
email: k n o b i AT knobisoft DOT de
www: http://www.knobisoft.de


2004-04-09 18:13:12

by Joel Jaeggli

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: your mail

On Fri, 9 Apr 2004, Martin Knoblauch wrote:

> >I was wondering if for linux or better for a linux filesystem
> >there is something like dynamic swapping of files possible.
> >For explanation: I habeaccess to an Infinstor via NFS and
> >linux is runnig there. This server has a nice funtion I'd
> >like to have: if there are files that are not used for a
> >specified time (i.e. 30 days) they are moved to another storage
> >(disk and after that to an streamer tape) and are replaced
> >by some kind of 'link'. So if you look at your directory you
> >can see everything that was there, but if you try to open it,
> >you have to wait a moment (some seconds if the file was
> >swapped to another disk) oder just another moment (some
> >minutes if the file is on a tape) and then it restored at
> >it's old place.
> >
>
> Good description of a HSM (Hierarchical Storage Management)
> System.
>
> >So is there anything which provides such a feature? By now
> >I have a little script that moves such files out of the way and
> >replaces them by links. But restoring is somewhat harder and
> >it's not automatic.
> >
> >Any ideas?
> >

part of the thing for us (my group at UO) right now, is tape robots aren't
cheaper than disk, so a lot of our offline/near-line backup is slowly
moving in that direction... 1TB lto jukeboxs cost order of $8-9K ea and
the driver for your commercial tabe-backup software can cost nearly that
much on top of it, but I can put 3.5TB of disk in a 5u enclosure and
locate in some other building for a similar price if not less. Even If buy
it in something like a netapp filer it's still only around $10,000 a TB so
HSM systems involving tape don't really have the same apeal as when we
were paying $1200ea for 4GB scsi disks. If I had sunk costs in something
like a storagetek powerhorn with 6000 tape capacity I might think a little
differently but I suspect your situation is closer to mine that it is to
the sorts of people who buy those.

> Really depends. As far as I know thare are no "free" HSM Systems
> out there for Linux The only one that I am faintly familiar with
> that runs on Linux is StorNext from ADIC. Definitely not free.
>
> DMF/Irix may now be ported to Linux (Altix/IA64), but I doubt
> it will be free.
>
> Sun is most likely not (yet) interested in doing a Linux port
> of SAM-FS (there are still Sparc/Solaris Machines to sell).
> And it won't be free (my guess).
>
> Tivoli/IBM and UniTree are also sold for Linux. Again "sold" is
> the important word
>
> Martin
>
>
> =====
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Martin Knoblauch
> email: k n o b i AT knobisoft DOT de
> www: http://www.knobisoft.de
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [email protected]
> More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joel Jaeggli Unix Consulting [email protected]
GPG Key Fingerprint: 5C6E 0104 BAF0 40B0 5BD3 C38B F000 35AB B67F 56B2