Openfiler Storage Management Software GPL'd

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article on The Inquirer, a UK based company has set up a GPL'd Linux-based storage management project called Openfiler, and donated its code to it. There are some nice screenshots showing off its features. Apparently, the code itself will be available for download on 30th of October. There is a press release on the company's website. The concept of special purpose Linux distributions for enterprise applications seems to be picking up in recent years, with release of products from SuSE, Smoothwall and the like."

Comments

Interesting, but...

[AKnightCowboy]

This seems to be just something you'd install on top of an already installed Red Hat system. Are they going to provide complete minimized disk images? I couldn't tell from a quick glance at the site and screenshots. Basically it's just a web interface to the tools already included in Red Hat (Samba, NFS, etc.). I was really hoping for some all-in-one optimized and minimized distribution that you'd install on a CF card and just reflashed to update it to a newer version. Then throw in a 3ware or SCSI RAID card, a bunch of disks, and be off. If this is just a web interface for Red Hat it isn't that interesting.

Linux as application platform

[heironymouscoward]

I commented on this before, WRT to bootable Linux CDROMS for games.

Linux is an excellent platform for whole-system applications, i.e. applications that take over an entire system. This used to be a bizarre concept but today is perfectly sensible: hardware is cheap and if dedicated boxes make sense for firewalls, routers, and web servers, why not for enterprise applications too?

With Linux, the application designers can create a turn-key package that delivers a complete solution. The application does not even have to be GPLd unless it is derived from existing GPLd work.

The missing piece used to be device detection, but Linux is so good at this today that it has redefined the concept of "platform", which used to be an operating system, but is now simply random hardware.

The example of a bootable application CD based on Linux is an extreme one that I think shows the potential. Don't laugh: this is how many firewalls work today.

Last year my company provided an industrial application (a Kiosk) as a bootable Linux CD (on which there were three Debian layers, one for the boot server, one for the kiosk servers, and one for the kiosk clients). The application has not broken down a single time.

It works.

Re:Linux as application platform

[temojen]

I'm slowly working on one... I hope to have it semi-workable by late march.

It's a 2 cd set... you put one CD in one computer on a lan (the server) and it allocates a bunch of free space on whatever filesysyem it finds (for spooling).

Then you put the other CD in each of the workstations one by one... and it does a raw image of whatever writeable block devices it finds, and sends them to the server to be compressed and written to DVD-Rs

Restoring is the opposite process, so it restores an exact copy of the system state except for the clock.

The intended use is for backing up donated computers at election campaign offices so they may have uniform software installed (probably Linux) but be returned in the exact state they came in.

Re:Linux as application platform

[xski]

i.e. applications that take over an entire system. This used to be a bizarre concept

Huh? A system reboot was the only way to 'exit' soooo many Apple ][ games precisely because they took over the entire system.

Likewise early PC games, and even a few commercial apps.

-x

You know may allready have been done, sort of

[Crashmarik]

There is the issue of Iomegas and Linksys Nas porducts. I could swear that they have a very linux feel in their particular network options. I havent tried it, but I have heard the same is true of the SnapServer.

If they are appropriating GPL'd code we may have several projects allready done

Good start!

[kerubi]

This looks promising. There is not a lot of information on the site yet, but you can guess a lot from the screen shots. This is one to keep an eye on.

Apparently they plan to keep part of the software commercial by providing it means to access commercial code for some features.

To be successful in most common enterprise environments they will have to support MS AD for quota & user management. Perhaps that can be done through LDAP already.

They didn't mention backup options anywhere. They need to build NDMP support at least.

Re:Great

[weave]

I, for one, welcome our new openfiling overlords.

A new System V derivitive work. SCO, the supreme overlord over all Unix code, welcomes the new openfiling Intelectual Property to add to its growing portfolio.

Re:Interesting, but... RTFA

[Avihson]

" Openfiler will become a stand-alone Linux distribution."
Right now it is sitting on top RH. They are planning on a stand alone version, as soon as they incorporate all of the legitimate user requested features and squash any bugs.
If there is no interest, then they will move on to something else. If there is great interest, then they will continue developing.
Rome wasn't built in a day.

I hear MS is making a system like this.

[MongooseCN]

Instead of calling it OPENfiler though they are going to call it DEfiler.

Re:Sooooo...

[HiThere]

It's not all that special. There are commercial products that do the same job...as pre-packaged systems, and at a price.

What this does is allow a normal computer (say that old 233 machine you've got) to have a large hard disk put on them, and then act as a Network Attached Storage device. There are already ways of doing this, but they take a lot of ad-hoc twiddling, and they take customization. This is an interface that handles that part. Nothing special, but very nice! SnapServer does this on a larger scale and sells their systems at a hefty mark-up. And it's worth it at the price...if it's what you need.