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Google Two Years Into Overhaul of the Google File System

El Reg writes "As its ten-year-old file system — GFS — struggles to keep up with Gmail, YouTube, and other apps it was never designed to support, Google is brewing a replacement. According to the company, it's two years into a GFS sequel designed specifically for customer-facing apps that require ultra low latency."

217 comments

  1. GFS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Google File System.

    1. Re:GFS? by Vectronic · · Score: 4, Funny

      Wrong, its the Google GFS File System!

    2. Re:GFS? by roguetrick · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't that be GGFS?

      --
      -The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
    3. Re:GFS? by miro+f · · Score: 1

      no it would be GGFSFS

      --
      being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
    4. Re:GFS? by Vu1turEMaN · · Score: 1

      wwwwwoooooooooowwwwwooooooooossssshhhhhssssshhhhh

    5. Re:GFS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It wasn't that impressive. A simple "wow" would have sufficed.

    6. Re:GFS? by JunkmanUK · · Score: 1

      I think it was meant to be whoosh (spelt wrongly?!) with a doppler effect... so in actual fact it should have been

      wwwwwwwwwwwwwwooooooooooooooooooosshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

    7. Re:GFS? by suso · · Score: 1

      This is an important distinction because RedHat sells a cluster filesystem called GFS, which stands for Global File System. So it can be confusing to just say GFS.

    8. Re:GFS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Either that or he was trying to play on the internally repetitive nature of the "Google GFS File System" that people are talking about.

    9. Re:GFS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was thinking more along the lines of GFS File System (recrusive)

  2. hmm by gnarfel · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well I'm no expert on Google's internal workings, but are any of these protocols or file systems they've developed been released outside of Google for public use?

    --
    Local music(to upstate NY). http://gnarfel.com/ radio.
    1. Re:hmm by buchner.johannes · · Score: 5, Funny

      GFS is proprietary and for internal use only. The only released a paper describing how it works (don't know if that content is enough to rebuild it). I think GFS (global file system) from Redhat and OpenGFS is something differently. Hadoop is what you want. What would we do without the wiki

      --
      NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
    2. Re:hmm by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, they haven't. So why does the editor think we care? "Google Six Months Into Resurfacing Parking Lot"

    3. Re:hmm by mysidia · · Score: 5, Funny

      They have not, and apparently Google thinks of the Google FS as part of their secret sauce, such that they will probably never get it released. Although they seem happy to write papers about it.

      It's actually really sad... Google has built an innovative platform for distributed computing, that solves quite a few problems, vastly superior to the state of the art in distributed computing, but they basically keep the filesystem and clustering implementations completely to themselves, it would seem.

      They use the Linux platform to the absolute max, leveraging all the blood and sweat Linux developers poured into its development over the past 15 years, and yet, not contributing back any of their most significant enhancements.

      I won't call it evil, as they're under no obligation to release GoogleFS or their map reduce implementations, it's just unkind.

      I would equate it to an inventor creating the lightbulb, and their employer saw this, and decided instead of trying to sell the invention to the public, they decided to only allow their own factories to buy lightbulbs, thus netting them a competitive advantage over other factories whose workers had to operate in the dark or by candlelight.

      No software product available to the public that even utilizes GoogleFS. Instead it's all software as a service (The Google search engine service, that is)

    4. Re:hmm by ToadProphet · · Score: 5, Funny

      Parent and GP modded funny? Am I missing the joke or are there some giddy drunks with mod points?

      --
      It's on America's tortured brow, That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
    5. Re:hmm by buchner.johannes · · Score: 4, Funny

      Everyone is in a good mood. Why not :-)

      --
      NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
    6. Re:hmm by MeatBag+PussRocket · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They use the Linux platform to the absolute max, leveraging all the blood and sweat Linux developers poured into its development over the past 15 years, and yet, not contributing back any of their most significant enhancements.

      i see your point, but its not like google isnt giving signifigantly in return. most people would be hard pressed to deny that Googles search engine was a game changer in the interweb. at its release it was leaps and bounds better tahn just about anything out there, and is still the gold standard for finding information. hell they gave us the verb "to google" we got a pretty decent browser out of it, gmail, google docs, google maps, and a whole bunch of other stuff they've generated. not to mention a forthcoming OS. at this point i can already hear critics screaming about Googles profits driving these services, and you know what, maybe they are, but i havent paid Google a dime, and most likely, neither have you. i dont care if they make money, theres nothing wrong with it, and i'm even happier that they make money without involving me whatsoever. in many ways i would think Google would be a champion to the FOSS community. so they want to keep a filesystem proprietary, frankly thats not so bad, competition is good but competitors arent usually. Google is a good counter balance to Microsoft and other would-be owners of the interwebs. are they "good" as in saintly? no, but they never claimed to be, they claimed "dont be evil" i'd say they're pretty far from that.

      --
      i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
    7. Re:hmm by ksatyr · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Google Six Months Into Resurfacing Parking Lot"

      And it's still in beta.

    8. re: hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      nope, read the Wikipedia article on GFS

    9. Re:hmm by lawpoop · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They use the Linux platform to the absolute max, leveraging all the blood and sweat Linux developers poured into its development over the past 15 years, and yet, not contributing back any of their most significant enhancements.

      Not contributing back!? Dude, they gave us *google*. Remember what it was like before google? When internet search was basically voo-doo crapshoots, that worked 25% of the time? They gave us a search engine that actually *worked*. Before that, you basically had to bookmark or memorize internet sites that you liked. Good luck actually finding what you were looking for without having an actual site in mind beforehand.

      I think that alone has probably spurred the development of free software. Imagine being able to *find things* on the internet!

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    10. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You seem to be under the impression that GFS would be super useful to the public at large, like a lightbulb. It's not. It's quite specialized.

      Besides search engines, I suppose there might be some scientific applications, but even that is not a given, said applications probably need their own specialization and may require lots of modification to be useful anyway.

    11. Re:hmm by Night+Goat · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yahoo worked fine for me before Google. I think you give it more credit than it deserves. The downside of Yahoo was its advertising and clutter. The searching part worked fine.

    12. Re:hmm by Snarf+You · · Score: 5, Funny

      While I found both posts informative, I find it funny that they were modded funny. It's meta-funny. You know what else is funny, is that the word funny starts to sound funny after saying it enough times.

    13. Re:hmm by billcopc · · Score: 5, Funny

      You clearly weren't an Altavista user.

      Google's results today are no better than the leading search engines 10 years ago. People were gaming the engines then, and Google came up with a smarter algorithm (Pagerank), but today's results page is again full of garbage because people learned how to game Pagerank. Combine that with the web 2.0 fad of scraping and regurgitating everyone else's content, and the resultant pile of URLs for any given keyword is utterly worthless. I call it "metapublishing", because the content is worthless, it's become a twisted game of outwitting Google to maximize ad revenue while providing zero value.

      Searching has always been a game of finding the most specific yet least popular terms to define what you want, and then adding a bunch of negative keywords to filter out the junk. Google scored a hit, many many years ago, but they haven't been able (or willing) to maintain that lead, and all their competitors have pretty much died out anyway.

      If Google hadn't come along when it did, someone else would have stepped up. Maybe Altavista, or Yahoo, or someone else. There was a need, and a provider to address that need. The only reason we don't have a new search engine to beat Google today is because, well, everyone is scared shitless of going head-to-head with Google, except Microsoft with their propaganda-laced Bing embarrassment. They're just not the golden child people seem to think they are.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    14. Re:hmm by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 5, Funny

      Altavista worked fine, HotBot too. I started using Google primarily because of the cached pages, not because the search was that much better. Plus like you say the Google interface was a breath of fresh air.

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    15. Re:hmm by ToadProphet · · Score: 5, Funny

      Everyone is in a good mood. Why not :-)

      Modded Troll... now that's delicious.

      --
      It's on America's tortured brow, That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
    16. Re:hmm by mysidia · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yahoo was originally a web directory, not a conventional search engine. The search results were provided by others.

      In 2000, they signed an agreement with Google, and Yahoo's search was powered by Google, in other words -- if you used Yahoo, you were using Google.

      That didn't change until 2005, and after several other search engine company acquisitions, when they developed their own search technology.

    17. Re:hmm by negRo_slim · · Score: 5, Funny

      Plus like you say the Google interface was a breath of fresh air.

      Sometimes I wonder if Yahoo hadn't made their default page http://search.yahoo.com/ early on, if they wouldn't have done somewhat better for themselves.

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    18. Re:hmm by NekoYasha · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's called a " running gag".

    19. Re:hmm by Afforess · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you repeat a word too many times, quickly, your brain become tired of that word and it begins to become foreign to it. This event is similar in nature to looking at grid illusions. Your brain becomes tired after a few moments and you see dots.

      --
      If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
    20. Re:hmm by jcnnghm · · Score: 5, Informative

      You know from June 2000 to February 2004 Google was the backend for the Yahoo web page search. That was back when Yahoo was a web site "human directory" search first and foremost, and only secondarily a machine-powered internet search. Sort of like how Yahoo search is going to be powered by Bing in the future, and was powered by Inktomi before Google.

      --
      You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
    21. Re:hmm by superdave80 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Funny
      Funny
      Funny
      Fun...

      Shit, you're right!

    22. Re:hmm by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

      In 2000, they signed an agreement with Google, and Yahoo's search was powered by Google, in other words -- if you used Yahoo, you were using Google.

      Let us not forget Inktomi, I believe they used a few other providers during those years as well.

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    23. Re:hmm by lawpoop · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If Google hadn't come along when it did, someone else would have stepped up.

      Doesn't change the fact that it *was* them, who was able to do it when nobody else had been able to. So I think that yes, they did contribute a lot to open source development. It's not enough to have a good idea, or believe that someone will eventually get around to it; someone actually has to sit down and *do* it. If google hadn't done it then, we would be that much further behind in internet search technology.

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    24. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You cared enough to post in the thread...

    25. Re:hmm by Afforess · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why is the OP funny, if it says "40% interesting," "30% funny" and "30% informative"? Shouldn't the post be "Interesting?"

      --
      If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
    26. Re:hmm by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 5, Informative

      Your recollections are different from mine. Prior to Google, I tended to use AltaVista and Hotbot. Searches took at least ten times as long. Results rarely included any recently created pages. The number of indexed pages was several orders of magnitude less than Google handles today (which in turn is one order of magnitude, or so, greater than current competitors). In spite of the fact that gaming of search engines is overwhelmingly targeted at Google, Google still does a relatively better job of finding the genuinely useful pages. Is Google perfect? No, of course not. Search is still only a partially solved problem. However, since its inception, Google has come up with most of the practical advances in the state of the art, as well as the best infrastructure for its implementation.

    27. Re:hmm by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 5, Funny

      They use the Linux platform to the absolute max, leveraging all the blood and sweat Linux developers poured into its development over the past 15 years, and yet, not contributing back any of their most significant enhancements.

      Not contributing back!? Dude, they gave us *google*. Remember what it was like before google? When internet search was basically voo-doo crapshoots, that worked 25% of the time? They gave us a search engine that actually *worked*. Before that, you basically had to bookmark or memorize internet sites that you liked. Good luck actually finding what you were looking for without having an actual site in mind beforehand.

      I think that alone has probably spurred the development of free software. Imagine being able to *find things* on the internet!

      Are you kidding? Search for Quake? Porn. Search for a new version of Netscape? Porn. Google? PFtb. It always gave me Quake and Netscape. My pr0n searching was MUCH more productive before Google!

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    28. Re:hmm by skine · · Score: 5, Funny

      Woooooooooooooo!

      (Apparently just entering "Woooooooooooooo!" creates an error. I have to explain that it's supposed to be a giddy mod, thus destroying any semblance of assuming intelligence present in at least part of the /. community).

    29. Re:hmm by Dahamma · · Score: 4, Funny

      Because it's funny.

    30. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I CAN'T SEE ANY DOTS!

    31. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      who remembers webcrawler?

    32. Re:hmm by Dahamma · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You clearly weren't a daily Google user 10 years ago.

      The moment I realized Google was completely superior to the others was when I was able to paste an obscure compile error for an equally obscure CPU architecture into Google and immediately get the answer back... the kind of utterly random error that a few years previous would have potentially taken hours to debug...

      If Google hadn't come along when it did, someone else would have stepped up. Maybe Altavista, or Yahoo

      And you were modded Insightful - sigh... So you are saying they decided "oh, well Google is pretty good at this - let's NOT STEP UP." Yeah, that's what companies do in that situation. Or maybe they do try, and fail (nothing wrong with trying and failing... but that's the REALITY of the situation).

    33. Re:hmm by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Move closer to your screen. There's plenty of them.

    34. Re:hmm by wdr1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Put the crackpipe down!

      I was an altavista user. A die-hard one, for most of the mid/late-nineties. In fact, I remember the day I finally convinced my boss to switch from Altavista to Google, because he had worked on Altavista.

      Today's results completely blow away the search engines of 10 years ago. In fact, any of the major players -- Yahoo, Microsoft, even Ask & co. -- would blow away the search engines of 10 years ago.

      (Add to the fact that the number of documents on the web that they need to crawl & rank have exploded.)

      Your comment that "the resultant pile of URLs for any given keyword is utterly worthless" is itself hyperbolic nonsense. If that were true, nobody would use them.

      --
      SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
    35. Re:hmm by HeronBlademaster · · Score: 5, Funny

      I used Dogpile, back in the day; it would show you the results from ten or so other search engines.

    36. Re:hmm by unity · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The only thing you really missed there was the really simple, non-image intensive interface. That alone spurred people to use google.

    37. Re:hmm by PitaBred · · Score: 2, Funny

      Only if it's ironing.

    38. Re:hmm by BikeHelmet · · Score: 5, Funny

      Shit, I see dots from the start. My brain must be really lazy.

    39. Re:hmm by marafa · · Score: 0

      funny funny funny -
        Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition.

      hey check it out .. you dont have to worry about that coz slashdot wont let you repeat it too many times!

      --
      _ In Egypt Networks: Network Solutions with a Twist
    40. Re:hmm by KahabutDieDrake · · Score: 1

      It's simply good business, and as we've been shown endlessly, there is no good or bad, no right and wrong in business. Simply what you can do, and what you can do and get away with.

      Google isn't going to arm their competition with the very tools that set google apart. I don't think any rational person would actually expect them to. While I'd like to see their tools and platforms released to the community, it would probably help google's competitors more than it would the community itself. After all, when was the last time you deployed a distributed system with geo nodes across the world and needed absolutely fail safe data backup with no down time? It's just not something anybody does very often.

    41. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Many people think that Google's original claim to fame is PageRank. That's only partially true. Google became as successful as they are because of their systems-scalability work. That is, Google figured out how to build the biggest clusters, with the most storage space, the most computation capacity, and the lowest latency, for the least amount of money (compared to their competitors anyway). If you have 1000x times the computing power of your nearest competitor, then you can do 1000x as much data mining, which means that your search results (and ad relevancy) will be that much better.

      For a long time, Google refused to release any information on their system infrastructure (it was their crown jewel, after all). The GFS paper was released in 2003, well after Google had put the filesystem (and its predecessors) to public use.

      To sum it up: GFS has been one of the strongest contributing factors to Google's dominance. The idea that Google would voluntarily give this code to competitors is laughable.

    42. Re:hmm by sootman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It really amuses me how all these different comments come up in every thread about search engines. Everyone's experience is different. Google is still very useful to me 99% of the time. As for AltaVista, I remember '96-'97 very well. I would usually use Yahoo first. If Yahoo only produced a small handful of results--literally, 10 or less, and no good ones--then I'd go to AltaVista and get tens of thousands of results. If I was lucky I'd find what I wanted in the first few pages, else I'd give up.

      Google is still literally orders of magnitude than anything else I've tried. Disclaimer: I've pretty much used only Google for the last... um, however many years it's been since they came on the scene. I won't claim to have used it when they were still hosted at stanford.edu, but I heard about them early on (back when they had , probably from Slashdot, and I was impressed right away. I probably stopped using Yahoo altogether within a couple months.

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    43. Re:hmm by sootman · · Score: 1

      Not contributing back!? Dude, they gave us *google*.

      And "just fucking google it" has started replacing RTFM. :-) See also "Let Me Google That For You."

      A guy on a list I used to be on used to ask REALLY dumb, easily-googlable questions. I mean, you could literally take the message subject, plug it into google, and get the answer. I wrote (but never deployed) a script that would take the subject of his message, google it, and reply to the list with the first page of search results in the body. (Something like "links --dump http://www.google.com/search?q=$1+$2+$3+$4+$5 | mail blah@example.org")

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    44. Re:hmm by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

      Or maybe they do try, and fail

      Microsoft's recent and past antics in search engines pretty much proves this.
      MS continuously tries to step up, even though they keep failing.

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    45. Re:hmm by V!NCENT · · Score: 1

      Google doesn't want the competition to get all the good stuff and Linux doesn't want a highly optimised for Google only FS that nobody benefits from, except Google ofcourse.

      The only benefit for Google would be upstream support in the Linux kernel, but if they have enough man and money to create their own FS then I guess they don't care about that either...

      --
      Here be signatures
    46. Re:hmm by V!NCENT · · Score: 5, Funny

      It takes absolutely zero effort for this post to be modded funny

      --
      Here be signatures
    47. Re:hmm by V!NCENT · · Score: 1
      --
      Here be signatures
    48. Re:hmm by dr_d_19 · · Score: 1

      Even if that was true (which it is not), it's not the reason I switched to Google. My problem was that altavista snuck ads into the search results. Like adwords, but it would appear as search result #1. That - combined with the fact that Googles result were better and updated more often - didn't really make the choice all that difficult.

    49. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not contributing back!? Dude, they gave us *google*. Remember what it was like before google? When internet search was basically voo-doo crapshoots, that worked 25% of the time? They gave us a search engine that actually *worked*. Before that, you basically had to bookmark or memorize internet sites that you liked. Good luck actually finding what you were looking for without having an actual site in mind beforehand.

      I think that alone has probably spurred the development of free software. Imagine being able to *find things* on the internet!

      You mean the web. One of the things that made me prefer gopherspace during its demise until its death (it is now somewhat resurrected), was that it was a hell-of-a-lot easier to find what you were looking for compared to the web. The web was fancy looking, gopherspace was actually usable. Internet News groups were also as easy to search as the web with google, until they got filled with too much spam.

      Google made a difference in searching the web, not the whole internet.

    50. Re:hmm by theTerribleRobbo · · Score: 1

      Well, no, they bought Inktomi in 2002 and used *its* search technology instead.

    51. Re:hmm by jimicus · · Score: 4, Funny

      Of course, by posting under your user account, you're not a mod in this thread any more so it's all rather academic.

    52. Re:hmm by vegiVamp · · Score: 1

      So is the one about the marathon.

      --
      What a depressingly stupid machine.
    53. Re:hmm by Vu1turEMaN · · Score: 4, Funny

      Please take your meds, Rick Flair....

    54. Re:hmm by gwern · · Score: 1

      > What would we do without the wiki

      Thanks; I always enjoy seeing people find my articles useful!
      /article editor

    55. Re:hmm by cheekyboy · · Score: 1

      google is so good I forgot a movie title , and just entered 1 letter and 1 number of it, and it found it.

      Now thats good!!!

      --
      Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
    56. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not contributing back!? Dude, they gave us *google*. Remember what it was like before google? When internet search was basically voo-doo crapshoots, that worked 25% of the time?

      No I don't remember because it didn't ever happen. Google improved the search landscape in a significant way, but things were perfectly fine before.
      I switched to google from altavista when they basically gave up refreshing their index in a timely fashion.

    57. Re:hmm by nOw2 · · Score: 1

      Google have published scientific papers on several things they have developed, and described many parts of their infrastructure in detail in lectures and at conferences. From these others have built their own implementations, such as Hadoop. From this, two things we got were Yahoo and Bing.

    58. Re:hmm by Xemu · · Score: 5, Informative

      It takes absolutely zero effort for this post to be modded funny

      It doesn't take much to be modded informative either.

      --
      Tell your friends about xenu.net
    59. Re:hmm by autocracy · · Score: 1

      OK, try it again after emptying a six round revolver and continuing to pull the trigger.

      --
      SIG: HUP
    60. Re:hmm by ciderVisor · · Score: 1

      Gopherspace is becoming too cluttered up with people.

      --
      Squirrel!
    61. Re:hmm by MistrBlank · · Score: 2, Funny

      Except for you apparently Mr. (Score:3, Informative)....

    62. Re:hmm by MistrBlank · · Score: 1

      I fail to understand the difference. Directory or Search Engine, don't they both crawl the web for data, index it and allow users to start a search of the stored content?

      I don't recall Yahoo being like a telephone directory where things were grouped. I recall entering the page and typing a search query. More often than not I would get back the garbage pages that had the hidden tagging with all of those hot keywords everyone was searching on just to bump a page rank.

      Google was of the first engines to see past that crap.

    63. Re:hmm by Sinbios · · Score: 1

      It's meta-funny

      Does that mean the meta mod for the mod should be modded funny?

      I think we have a winner for the next April Fool's.

      --
      Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
    64. Re:hmm by steveo777 · · Score: 1

      I remember those days... back in high school (circa 95-99) when 700 kids shared one ISDN with the staff.... You had to select directories all the way down until you found something you might want. The search only found a directory's name, not contents.

      At that time searching was a joke. Nobody really used the internet for anything at school because it was too slow and there was nothing of use on it. Except, perhaps if you could quickly log onto a boobie site when the teacher or librarians hawk-like eyes looked away. Those URLs we memorized...

      Oh, and GET OFF MY LAWN!

      --
      This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
    65. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bing seems to be doing just fine.

    66. Re:hmm by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Maybe it's intentional that they posted this so soon after the GPL article where people who hadn't read the GPL (but still advocate it loudly) were loudly claiming that people who used Linux had to give their changes back to the community?

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    67. Re:hmm by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      The results from Google weren't better than AltaVista, but the google home page loaded almost instantly on a 26.4kbps modem, while the AltaVista page took almost 30 seconds. If Google hadn't come along, then a few years later the question of load times would have become irrelevant to me because I got a broadband connection.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    68. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      how is that not modded funny??

    69. Re:hmm by D+Ninja · · Score: 5, Funny

      C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

    70. Re:hmm by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      +5 funny... watch me be informative!

    71. Re:hmm by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      They use the Linux platform to the absolute max, leveraging all the blood and sweat Linux developers poured into its development over the past 15 years, and yet, not contributing back any of their most significant enhancements.

      I won't call it evil, as they're under no obligation to release GoogleFS or their map reduce implementations, it's just unkind.

      If these are both true (for the sake of argument) and GoogleFS is based on an existing *nix FS, or requires special kernel drivers, aren't they required to release the source based on BSD, GPL, or Apache licenses?

    72. Re:hmm by tchuladdiass · · Score: 1

      What year did you get on the net?
      Originally Yahoo had a list of categories on it's front page. Click on a topic, say "Programming", and you would get a list of additional sub topics. This was all hand-categorized.

      If you wanted to find out about Perl, you'd click on "Computers ... Programming ... Languages ... Perl". And you were guaranteed to get a list of tutorial pages on Perl. Whereas if you typed in "Perl Tutorial" on any of the search engines at the time you would spend about a half hour going through results to get a half dozen good pages.

    73. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You graduated high school in 1999 and you are telling people to get off your lawn? Oh gawd. You are a young PUNK. Get over it.

    74. Re:hmm by Mozk · · Score: 3, Funny

      Almost every comment posted on this page is modded 5 Funny. o_0

      Really, what's going on?

      --
      No existe.
    75. Re:hmm by hesaigo999ca · · Score: 1

      WTF, modded FUNNY, I think maybe someone has changed some
      backend SQL queries at /. and is randomly inserting funnies everywhere....
      I wonder if this reply will even be modded funny???

    76. Re:hmm by adolf · · Score: 1

      I laughed.

       

    77. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not what it used to be... http://www.webcrawler.com/

    78. Re:hmm by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      Everything's funny today!

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    79. Re:hmm by pauljlucas · · Score: 1

      Google has built an innovative platform for distributed computing, that solves quite a few problems, vastly superior to the state of the art in distributed computing, but they basically keep the filesystem and clustering implementations completely to themselves, it would seem.

      Here's an interesting question for the /. crowd: would you rather that Google keep GFS proprietary (as they are doing), or patent it (which requires disclosure as the "preferred embodiment" in the patent itself)? The latter would allow anyone to know how GFS works and perhaps even come up with better ideas sparked by GFS.

      --
      If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
    80. Re:hmm by project-nova · · Score: 1

      You mean like Slashdot?

    81. Re:hmm by turbidostato · · Score: 1

      No.

    82. Re:hmm by deander2 · · Score: 1

      http://www.google.com/search?q=quake

      i don't see any porn....

    83. Re:hmm by highfidelitychris · · Score: 1

      It's actually really sad... Google has built an innovative platform for distributed computing, that solves quite a few problems, vastly superior to the state of the art in distributed computing, but they basically keep the filesystem and clustering implementations completely to themselves, it would seem.

      And here I thought they were a publicly traded company trying to make money...

    84. Re:hmm by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

      Heh. My post wasn't all that clear, but I meant that Google's accurate results hindered my porn browsing.

      Man, now instead of funny I sound like a really sad individual.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    85. Re:hmm by mR.bRiGhTsId3 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I've read the paper. You can definitely reproduce GFS given enough time from the paper, since all of the synchronization and master/slave node dynamics are described very well. The actual implementation seems like it would be monstrously complex. Not something 2 or 3 guys could pull off in a weekend by any stretch. Anyone who is actually curious, here is the original paper from the acm, though you may need a membership to view it.

    86. Re:hmm by V!NCENT · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Karma whoring has never been this good...

      --
      Here be signatures
    87. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is utter bullshit. I switched from Altavista to Google because Altavista would invariably give me hundreds of pages of worthless shit no matter what I searched for. Google gave me exactly what I searched for, and I gave Altavista the heave-ho. Today I use Google because it gives me what I am looking for, and in _no possible way_ could the experience I have with Google today be compared with any search engine immediately prior to Google.

    88. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To be honest, this is not funny

    89. Re:hmm by mysidia · · Score: 1

      If you don't release binaries, you don't have to release source.

    90. Re:hmm by mysidia · · Score: 2, Informative

      Directory entries were submitted, reviewed, moderated, and maintained by humans.

      Search Engines were automated, and very poor. At first they didn't have much indexed, then they got things indexed, but your search terms would turn up irrelevant hits, and you would sometimes have to dig to the 12th or 13th page to find the most relevant, most reputable / highest quality page.

      A little later search engines got a little better, but started pushing sponsored results, and keyword spammers started flooding the first 10 pages of search results on popular search terms. The spammers of the world and "dot coms" became very good at manipulating search engines, the result was when you searched, you got tons of totally unrelated hits that had been kw-spammed or put there through other trickery.

      And thankfully, now we have Google. Which performs some decent filtering of much of the search spam to help downgrade the low-reputation irrelevant sites in search results. And also does an excellent job at finding highly relevant pages on quality sites.

      Oh yes, and the sponsored links are clearly labelled, and separated from the normal search results; so it's not "if you're our sponsor, your site quietly gets the number 1 search position".

      By the way, the Yahoo directory still exists, so you can see somewhat how it was like, if you perform all your web searches only on 'Search: The directory' and don't choose the new 'Search the web' option

      However, even that has been improved over the years.

    91. Re:hmm by cyngus · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that whole Android thing, 12+ million lines of code, not a contribution to open source at all...

    92. Re:hmm by Mista2 · · Score: 1

      Just be thankful Apple hasn't owned search. It would cost you $0.99 per search, you would have to use Safari, and you would not be able to search for porn unless you agreed to buy and iPod and confirm you are over 18.

      Google does seem to be odd though when it coes to open source - they leverage Linux, lots of javascript, they produced Chrome and Android, and are planing ChromeOS, yet they could have helped a major linux distro, or another opensource phone project, or produced open source hardware for Android, etc.
      Yes they are open, but how much of their stuff can you actually get the source for and use, and how much can you contribute to if you want to?
      I bet much of it is patented to death.

    93. Re:hmm by badkarmadayaccount · · Score: 1

      Better yet: Creative Commons style licensing. Any Joe Blow can make a supercomputing cluster, but can't make money of it before paying Google. I'd say that with CC-family licenses patents are obsolete.

      --
      I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
    94. Re:hmm by noppy · · Score: 1

      Today is funny day

  3. It's not really GFS by mysidia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's GoogleFS.

    GFS refers to the Global File System, which is commonly used in Linux clustering environments.

    By comparison, GoogleFS came second, is basically a no-name filesystem unknown to most of the IT world, because it's not available for use, hasn't been released as a product, compared to the well-established global filesystem.

    It would certainly seem like the Global File system would have priority claim over the name GFS...

    So let's stop calling Google's filesystem, which we'll probably never get to use GFS :)

    1. Re:It's not really GFS by fatalwall · · Score: 1

      its just a tla doesnt have any meaning what so ever until you give it context. By saying google its assumed there talking about googles tla gfs. Thats why when ever you use a tla its good to tell people what is at least once.

      tla = three letter acrylic

    2. Re:It's not really GFS by mysidia · · Score: 5, Funny

      That is a problem that may be getting corrected by the IANA TLA registry :)

    3. Re:It's not really GFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      GFS is commonly seen in clusters only in the sense that it's "commonly seen in research environment and throwaway test setups" as it's not really all that stable, has major consistency issues, only compiles when there's a full moon and lacks serious documentation

    4. Re:It's not really GFS by fatalwall · · Score: 1

      for those that havent read the above link do.. should give you a chuckle or two.. some one must have ocd to have fully made that!!

    5. Re:It's not really GFS by corsec67 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Tell that to the NWA. Wrestling and a wildlife foundation should be even easier to tell apart, they both aren't as similar as two file systems.

      --
      If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
    6. Re:It's not really GFS by skine · · Score: 1

      some one must have ocd to have fully made that!!

      Yes, people who do things without monetary reward have a disease.

    7. Re:It's not really GFS by icannotthinkofaname · · Score: 1

      tla = three letter acrylic

      I'm sorry, I'm not getting the joke. Are you deliberately defining "TLA" in an unexpected way, as you demonstrated in the content of your post that you could, or did you mean to type "three-letter acronym"?

      --
      Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
    8. Re:It's not really GFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is a problem that may be getting corrected by the ITR :)

      FTFY

    9. Re:It's not really GFS by ciderVisor · · Score: 1

      Was I the only person whose first thought was "Niggaz With Attitude" ?

      --
      Squirrel!
    10. Re:It's not really GFS by MistrBlank · · Score: 1

      I think I like the term Goo-FS

    11. Re:It's not really GFS by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 1

      IANA TLA

      Good disclaimer. I am not a three letter acronym, thank you very much!

    12. Re:It's not really GFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would certainly seem like the Global File system would have priority claim over the name GFS...

      Dude, almost any filesystem ends in "FS". When Google developed GFS, the other GFS was a small project they might not have heard of. (Searching the web was harder before Google created GFS.) So essentially there are two groups who independently picked the letter "G" to name their filesystem. Why should anyone get priority to the letter "G"? You'll just have to figure it out from context.

    13. Re:It's not really GFS by The+Iso · · Score: 1

      You are not.

      --
      "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Bob Dylan
  4. Google is IT done right... by Alien+Being · · Score: 5, Funny

    but God help us all if they ever do turn evil.

    1. Re:Google is IT done right... by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 3, Funny

      Google is what happens when developers and IT talk to each other correctly. Normally there is a brick wall separating the two, with IT guys being at the mercy of whatever the well-meaning but typically oblivious (to IT problems) devs cook up.

    2. Re:Google is IT done right... by Alien+Being · · Score: 1

      Developers aren't IT?

    3. Re:Google is IT done right... by east+coast · · Score: 1

      A lot of places don't see devs as IT. They see anything hardware as IT. In your environment it may be screwy, in another it's accepted.

      --
      Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    4. Re:Google is IT done right... by ObitMan · · Score: 4, Funny

      not on your life.
      Developers constantly ruin perfectly good infrastructure.

      --
      Who run Barter Town?
    5. Re:Google is IT done right... by east+coast · · Score: 1

      LOL. Good way of putting it.

      --
      Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    6. Re:Google is IT done right... by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 5, Funny

      Developers aren't IT?

      Not really, no. It's kind of like the difference between a doctor and a patient. Or to use a car analogy, the difference between being an automotive engineer and the guy who takes money for candy bars, magazines and fuel.

      Disclosure: I was a developer for about thirty years before I took a step down and moved into marketing. I learned a lot of languages but was stopped when I discovered I was having trouble mastering Hindi.

      --
      Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
    7. Re:Google is IT done right... by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Because they're not allowed to share their ideas with IT, and vice versa. I can't list the number of times developers have published brain-scrambled vomit as part of their projects, because it didn't interest them and no one with experience was around to explain the inevitable problems. The maintenance model for subversion where you have to completely rebuild the repository to completely delete an accidentally stored DVD image is a classic example.

      Conversely, I've expressed extreme doubts about projects that turned out to be effective and workable because my knowledge of file system behavior or hardware limitations was 3 weeks behind the times. I even spiked a project once for such reasons, although when the developer and I spoke without the confused manager in the way it became clear that the hardware _could_ support his needs.

    8. Re:Google is IT done right... by dangitman · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Turn evil? That would require them not to be evil in the first place.

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
    9. Re:Google is IT done right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's more like the janitors (IT) and the guys who use the men's room and have bad aim (Developers).

      I was both, for many years after being a real engineer (mechanical), consulting (in several fields), research, security, and finally management (for the big money). Love the Valley, man. Never bored. Anyway, I stand by my analogy.

      FYI: Helpdesk is like the people who clean out bed pans.

    10. Re:Google is IT done right... by Duncan3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Not really, it's IT done by not letting anyone over 30 or with any experience into the room. Every single issue they had to learn and fix mentioned in the article is quite literally standard textbook stuff in distributed systems, and has been for over 40 years. The failure model, the huge chunk sized, the single master problems... etc. Nobody who had taken even one decent class would have ever considered the original design viable.

      They really should just stick to buying their tech pre-made like everything else Google is known for - acquisitions. Other companies are willing to hire experienced people. You know, those old lazy bastards that only work 40 hours a week because they have families, cost way too much to provide health insurance to, but get things done 5x as fast because they have done it before :)

      --
      - Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
    11. Re:Google is IT done right... by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not really, it's IT done by not letting anyone over 30 or with any experience into the room. Every single issue they had to learn and fix mentioned in the article is quite literally standard textbook stuff in distributed systems, and has been for over 40 years. The failure model, the huge chunk sized, the single master problems... etc. Nobody who had taken even one decent class would have ever considered the original design viable. They really should just stick to buying their tech pre-made like everything else Google is known for - acquisitions [wikipedia.org]. Other companies are willing to hire experienced people. You know, those old lazy bastards that only work 40 hours a week because they have families, cost way too much to provide health insurance to, but get things done 5x as fast because they have done it before :)

      You hit the nail right on the head. The original GFS is pretty lame, as Google folks freely admit (full disclosure: I'm a fomer Googler, but I'm not telling you anything you can't find on ahem Google). The new GFS will also be pretty lame, because as you correctly point out, Larry, Sergey and Eric don't quite get the concept of experienced people who have done it before. All that standard clustering stuff has to be reinvented by Googlers, who frankly, have gotten a little soft over the years, now so used to working. We will see, but I'm predicting that the new GFS will still be a research project two years from now.

      --
      Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
    12. Re:Google is IT done right... by phil_south · · Score: 1

      Ahh, a developer with an inflated sense of their own place in the computing world, how surprising.

      In most shops I.T. means sysadmins, network admins and support technicians. They support the crap you create.

      The analogy of Developer to Aircraft engineer can be fair enough, IT are the mechanics, electricians, avionics technicians, air traffic controllers etc etc

      Without "IT" no one would use most of your crap because no one would be able to keep it flying, landing, taking off and not falling out of the sky after 1000 flights.

    13. Re:Google is IT done right... by genik76 · · Score: 1

      Information Technology Association of America disagress with you, as it defines IT (information technology) to be "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." (source: http://www.itaa.org/es/docs/Information%20Technology%20Definitions.pdf)

      I have to strongly disagree with your doctor-patient analogy as well. I would rather say that a secretary is to IT what a patient is to a doctor. A developer would be in your analogy the people developing the drugs and medical equipment for the doctor.

    14. Re:Google is IT done right... by Burning1 · · Score: 1

      If by "Doctor and patient" you're referring to the old joke where the patient walks up and says "my arm hurts when I do this" and the doctor responds: "Then don't do that."

      I've met a lot of developers who really have no understanding of the operational impact of their design decisions. Some do a poor job of developing good test hooks and logging, others do a poor job of developing scalable software. Others ask for procedural workarounds for fundamental usability problems.

    15. Re:Google is IT done right... by deBalta · · Score: 1

      Every single issue they had to learn and fix mentioned in the article is quite literally standard textbook stuff in distributed systems, and has been for over 40 years

      Everybody is free to study said textbooks, yet there are not many successful competitors to Google. Published research is several years (or decades) old; since it got published probably it was not successful enough to start a profitable company out of it; as you read more you become more confused about contradictory theories. You could also go for the "industry best practice", alias the least common denominator. For example Java on top of enterprise database on top of huge hardware. Sounds like the first dot com boom ? So yes, read those books, and do your thing. You might even enjoy it. See "worst is better" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better

    16. Re:Google is IT done right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone sounds bitter, how is getting old working out for you?

    17. Re:Google is IT done right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."

    18. Re:Google is IT done right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The maintenance model for subversion where you have to completely rebuild the repository to completely delete an accidentally stored DVD image is a classic example.

      An extraordinary mistake requires extraordinary measures to fix. How is this bad? Allowing the kind of easy history-rewriting you're apparently interested in involves all sorts of trade-offs which you clearly haven't thought about. Talk to the Mercurial guys.

    19. Re:Google is IT done right... by MistrBlank · · Score: 1

      I used to want to work at one of those cool dot-coms since I started working at the boring drone of a state job I have now.

      Then I realized what you stated, those dot-coms with the young workers are pushing through by paying their real workers as little as possible because of their lack in experience and because they stand a better chance of working them around the clock.

      No thanks, I'll take my consistent state job, the ageism I encounter from the more experienced and older peers that are teaching me things, and the guaranteed 35-40 hour work week provided by my union contract. The extra hours I would be working elsewhere I can devote to myself and personal projects that may or may not be lucrative, but at least it's my time.

    20. Re:Google is IT done right... by gollito · · Score: 1

      Nobody who had taken even one decent class would have ever considered the original design viable.

      Maybe that's why they've lasted so long? The fact that they DIDN'T follow the already established principles may be why they are the success they are. Sure, some things may not have worked and they ended up going about it in a more "traditional" manner but I'm pretty sure they found improvements by going about this in a non-traditional manner. You know, the whole "think outside the box" thing?

    21. Re:Google is IT done right... by deander2 · · Score: 1

      what pipe are you smoking? there was nothing on the market in 1998 even remotely close to being able to handle was google's crawlers and indexers needed.

      also, to think google was ignorant of the history of distributed file research is mind-boggling. as you said, it's standard fair in any graduate level CS program. for my school, it was a required course for even the masters.

      the beauty of gfs was that it knew *which* constraints in which theories they needed to design for, and which they could simplify for performance reasons. they purposely relaxed what traditionally constitutes a file system to achieve an order of magnitude more scalability than anyone had previously ever been able to achieve.

      also, google almost single-handedly made it OK to be a phd in the commercial sector again. (for which i'm eternally grateful) and i would be willing to be they have the world's highest percent-grad-education in their workforce.

    22. Re:Google is IT done right... by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 1

      I've met a lot of developers who really have no understanding of the operational impact of their design decisions

      So have I. I think this is covered under Sturgeon's Second Law .

      --
      Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
    23. Re:Google is IT done right... by Duncan3 · · Score: 1

      You're right about one thing, the systems in 1998 didn't look like GoolgeFS. They looked like what GoogleFS is becoming now that they are actually learning how to do it. Google very clearly did not know which constraints mattered, but now they seem to be aimed towards the right track now.

      Oh, and you'll find the commercial world is vastly less impressed by a PhD then you think. Skills are all that matter. A PhD is like a shortwave radio - only other people with a shortwave care, and everyone else thinks you're a little nuts :)

      --
      - Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
    24. Re:Google is IT done right... by zaphirplane · · Score: 1

      I remember NSA rumours associated with google, like a lot of ex-NSA people working there or something.
      it would not surprise me if google turns out to be an NSA operation, why look for the information if people will come to you and let you know
      what they look for, who their friends are, contents of their emails, what pages and sites they visit, what language, where they use a computer from, add latitude and you have where they are in real time, google maps where they go and where they start from. Picasa what they look like what their friends look like, google docs and well ....
      google desktop and well .... lots about a person.
      Or am I paranoid?

    25. Re:Google is IT done right... by badkarmadayaccount · · Score: 1

      Mod parent up.

      --
      I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
    26. Re:Google is IT done right... by deander2 · · Score: 1

      Oh, and you'll find the commercial world is vastly less impressed by a PhD then you think. Skills are all that matter. A PhD is like a shortwave radio - only other people with a shortwave care, and everyone else thinks you're a little nuts :)

      depends on the sector. writing webapps for fedex? yeah, they don't care. developing an entity recogniser for a question-answering system? or an automated arabic/english translator? or a voice or image recognition algorithm? it starts to be important. ;)

      for the record, i don't have mine yet. and i worked for nearly a decade in the corporate and/or DoD space before i even contemplated grad school. (and very glad i did)

  5. Curiously by ShooterNeo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In the article, it's stated that the load on the google file system has grown orders of magnitude greater than it was ever intended to handle. And one of the algorithm changes is that the chunks in the new file system are 1 megabyte in size rather than 64 megabytes. This is to reduce latency, which makes logical sense...but dividing a gigantic database into pieces that are 64 time smaller doesn't make intuitive sense...

    1. Re:Curiously by Alien+Being · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "..but dividing a gigantic database into pieces that are 64 time smaller doesn't make intuitive sense..."

      It does if it was 64x too big to begin with. Live and learn.

    2. Re:Curiously by nthitz · · Score: 1

      Perhaps 64 MB is good for Search data where they are doing massive analyzation of sites, but for content such as short youtube videos or text email messages it may work quite nicely.

    3. Re:Curiously by MeatBag+PussRocket · · Score: 1

      would a highway have faster traffic if it were semi-trucks only or motorcycles only?

      --
      i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
    4. Re:Curiously by lazyforker · · Score: 1

      Maybe it allows them to distribute the load across a much larger number of spindles. Also they'll use space more efficiently: so a 1K file now only takes 1MB instead of 64.

    5. Re:Curiously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      The internet is not a truck.

    6. Re:Curiously by Russianspi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't know if that is so much the question, as much as: Would a highway get more people to where they are going faster if it were semis only or motorcycles only? The answer to this question (and probably to Google's question, too) is "It depends on a lot of other factors".

    7. Re:Curiously by MeatBag+PussRocket · · Score: 1

      facepalm

      --
      i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
    8. Re:Curiously by martin-boundary · · Score: 4, Funny

      It does if it was 64x too big to begin with. Live and learn.

      No need to learn. 64x should be enough for anybody, dammit!

    9. Re:Curiously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's actually a very poor example, mostly because none of the required data points are provided.

      Such as origin, destination, speed limit, pay load.

      There's an old saying, "never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of backup tapes".

      If you were moving pianos motor cycles are the worst possible transport.

      If you're moving a million court filings from a million places motor cycles, a million court filings from one office to another would be trucks.

      If the speed limit for moving something is possible by both transports, they're equal, motor cycles only win in congestion.

    10. Re:Curiously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "but dividing a gigantic database into pieces that are 64 time smaller doesn't make intuitive sense..."

      dude, u got it wrong, they don't want to basically break everything 64 times smaller. the idea is to support 1MB chunks.

      "Rapid growth also put pressure on another key parameter of the original GFS design: the choice to establish 64 MB as the standard chunk size. That, of course, was much larger than the typical file-system block size, but only because the files generated by Google's crawling and indexing system were unusually large. As the application mix changed over time, however, ways had to be found to let the system deal efficiently with large numbers of files requiring far less than 64 MB (think in terms of Gmail, for example). The problem was not so much with the number of files itself, but rather with the memory demands all of those files made on the centralized master, thus exposing one of the bottleneck risks inherent in the original GFS design."

      "My gut feeling is that if you design for an average 1-MB file size, then that should provide for a much larger class of things than does a design that assumes a 64-MB average file size. Ideally, you would like to imagine a system that goes all the way down to much smaller file sizes, but 1 MB seems a reasonable compromise in our environment."

    11. Re:Curiously by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Funny

      The question is based on assumptions. I've personally pushed an 18-wheeler over 150 mph. I've pushed a bike over 170 mph. In both cases, the limiting factors were all the 4-wheelers. Take the cars off the roads, and let the bikes and the trucks run.

      Oh yeah - one more thing. Mandate that cop cars have square wheels. They already have radio, they need a handicap to make things fair.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    12. Re:Curiously by nacturation · · Score: 1

      I've personally pushed an 18-wheeler over 150 mph.

      You must have really strong legs!

      --
      Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
    13. Re:Curiously by dzfoo · · Score: 1

      Interestingly, this is the only comment which is not modded funny!

              -dZ.

      --
      Carol vs. Ghost
      ...Can you save Christmas?
    14. Re:Curiously by Albert+Sandberg · · Score: 1

      It does if it was 64x too big to begin with. Live and learn.

      Yeah, I get that all the time.

    15. Re:Curiously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, the new chunk sizes are variable from 1 to 64MB in size. Changing the chunksize is trivial, making it variable is not.

    16. Re:Curiously by sam0737 · · Score: 1

      it's not just gigantic, but terantic...i mean perantic.

    17. Re:Curiously by ShooterNeo · · Score: 1

      lol. nice comment.

  6. Quality of comments going downhill... by s0litaire · · Score: 5, Funny
    There's over 25 comments and not one has attempted to call it "Goatse File System"!

    Whats up with you trolls! You guys on a union break or what!!

    --
    Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
    1. Re:Quality of comments going downhill... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Goatse File System would be open source. VERY open source, if you get my meaning...

    2. Re:Quality of comments going downhill... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Union rules require one troll to type each sentence, and then one more to hit the submit button. It would be simple as that, but the change in the slashdot UI created an undefined amount of time between "Preview" and "Submit", so they're still renegotiating the contract to account for that. Sorry.

    3. Re:Quality of comments going downhill... by vilms · · Score: 0

      "Meta-troll"? If I had the mod points...

    4. Re:Quality of comments going downhill... by commodoresloat · · Score: 1

      they're from california. It's a furlough day.

  7. Seriously Folks by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 1

    Seriously folks, is there no already existing file system that can already meet these needs? If not, then what are Google's competitors using?

    Is that no one else has yet to face up to this issues properly and this is a huge competitive advantage for Google, or is it simply NIH?

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
    1. Re:Seriously Folks by MikeBabcock · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Google has competitors?

      Seriously, Microsoft has been promising a database driven filesystem for its server OS for years without delivering anything substantial to date, and it doesn't seem like they're running anything different internally either.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    2. Re:Seriously Folks by jpkotta · · Score: 1

      Seriously folks, is there no already existing file system that can already meet these needs? If not, then what are Google's competitors using? Is that no one else has yet to face up to this issues properly and this is a huge competitive advantage for Google, or is it simply NIH?

      FTFA:

      One thing that helped tremendously was that Google built not only the file system but also all of the applications running on top of it. While adjustments were continually made in GFS to make it more accommodating to all the new use cases, the applications themselves were also developed with the various strengths and weaknesses of GFS in mind. "Because we built everything, we were free to cheat whenever we wanted to," Gobioff neatly summarized. "We could push problems back and forth between the application space and the file-system space, and then work out accommodations between the two."

    3. Re:Seriously Folks by jimicus · · Score: 1

      Well, there are distributed databases around and you could always write a web frontend to query one of those. But they're very expensive and not generally well represented in terms of Free (as in beer) products, and you're still left with the problem "how do we turn SELECT * FROM pages WHERE content="%user data%" into a useful set of results?

    4. Re:Seriously Folks by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      The filesystem layer isn't the only place for this kind of thing. Take a look, for example, at how the Internet Archive manages things. They have racks filled with almost totally independent computers, each of which manages a small amount of their data. They handle redundancy at the computer level; each individual node in their system is duplicated and if one fails there are others that can handle all of its requests. If you need something a bit more reliable then there are cluster databases that handle distributing data over a large number of nodes (Erlang comes with one built in, but there are also language-agnostic ones) without relying on the underlying filesystem being distributed. If you were building such a system now, DragonflyBSD's Hammer filesystem might be worth a look too; it is inspired by GoogleFS and ZFS, among other things.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    5. Re:Seriously Folks by CTachyon · · Score: 1

      Seriously folks, is there no already existing file system that can already meet these needs? If not, then what are Google's competitors using?

      Is that no one else has yet to face up to this issues properly and this is a huge competitive advantage for Google, or is it simply NIH?

      HDFS (the Hadoop File System) is based on fairly similar concepts, AFAIK. I haven't seen anything that directly competes with Bigtable, but the article goes into detail about SSTables and compaction, so I don't see any barrier to writing an open source competitor to that, either.

      (I've heard substantial rumors that there are already closed-source clones of both GFS and Bigtable, in addition to the significant and often well-publicized internal adoptions of Hadoop, e.g. at Yahoo. The GFS and Bigtable white papers are rather surprisingly complete.)

      --
      Range Voting: preference intensity matters
  8. Re:Developers aren't IT? by networkzombie · · Score: 1

    You need to change your terminology, because if you are saying that developers are not part of Information Technology, you are full of shit.

  9. Where's meta-moderation when you need it? by nobodyman · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm impressed that all of these Reddit users had the attention span to stay long enough to get mod points. But nobody likes a guest who overstays their welcome. Besides, I think somebody posted an animated gif of an old man falling down or something. GO CHECK IT OUT!!!1!1one

  10. Re:Developers aren't IT? by skine · · Score: 1

    Let me put it this way:

    Poorly run companies have HMOs and patients.

    Less poorly run companies have HMOs, doctors and patients.

    Well run companies hide the fact that there are HMOs.

  11. Re:Developers aren't IT? by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 1

    You need to change your terminology, because if you are saying that developers are not part of Information Technology, you are full of shit.

    Oh dear dear dear. I may be uh, compostally privileged, but I am pretty much across the industry. I even started a bit of it (not hard when you enter the industry in 1969). "IT" or "ICT" is commonly used to denote network, server and desktop infrastructure these days. Development, that is COTS package development or bespoke customisation is usually abstracted and referred to as -- well, "Development".

    I asked my daughter once what genus Dragons were most closely related to - were they a type of bird? "No, silly daddy! Dragons are Dragon-type".

    So I'd classify Developers as Developer-type, and leave the term IT to the wire-pullers and server-pluggers.

    --
    Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
  12. TFS fucking summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... shouldn't list both the acronym and its constituent words.

  13. Re:Developers aren't IT? by networkzombie · · Score: 1
    Cable pullers are Technicians. Server pluggers are Admins. They are all in IT and please give them the respect they deserve by referring to them using their proper titles. If your work involves an electronic computer in any way you are in IT. If you do all your work on an abacus or a chalkboard, you may not be in IT. Does your work involve a computer? Since you are trolling Slashdot revealing your age, I'll bet it does.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology

  14. You think they're not evil already, that's funny by itsybitsy · · Score: 1

    Just think about it, you're George Bush or Dick Cheney and The Google is just sitting there ripe for the plucking. Done deal dude. The USA Government very likely has all the access they want at Google to anything at all in real time with all details. If it's not true assume it is to be on the safe side.

  15. Re:hmm Google shills by 12357bd · · Score: 1

    Your comment and his moderation are an exact copy of what astroturfers has been doing for MS for years on public forums (paid marketing spin). Unfourtunately slashdotters seems to be easily deceived by the G word. :(

    --
    What's in a sig?
  16. You're a fascist Republican jihadist by hessian · · Score: 1

    Reddit groupthink: Although we work day jobs in call centers and as photoshop jockeys, we have figured out The One True Path (a mixture of populist liberalism, lolcats and outrage at anything that might make us leave our W.O.W.-enabled terminals for more than 30 seconds) and consider all of you who have not seen it to be beneath us. Even as we ask you to work with us while we fix this driver issue together.

  17. The short answer... by cbraescu1 · · Score: 1

    ...is "no".

    --
    Catalin Braescu
    Ofaly.com
  18. Re:Give Back by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 1

    Let's see what their TOS are for Chrome. Since OS's are another crown jewel of computing, if they sufficiently open it up to really let the devs make a Baskins Robbins 31-Flavors (Service Mark) of Chrome, *without* trying to copy Apple's secrecy, *and give back to Debian core*, they could unleash a force of nature.

    --
    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
  19. Where can we download it? by chrysalis · · Score: 1

    Cool, but where can we download it?

    Oh we can't?

    It's an internal project and it will remain an internal project just like the previous version. So what's the point for the rest of us?

    I'm really more excited about projects like Elliptics Network, because at least, they can be useful to everyone, not only to Google's employees.

    --
    {{.sig}}
  20. Better back your files up by kerskine · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have not doubt that the new file system will be great, but after reading this summary, the first thought I had was that I should back-up all that Gmail before they cut it over. I've been putting it off for far too long, but I'll just have to burn a couple of days of attention to do it.

    --
    ****

    "I'd never want to join a club that would have me as a member" - G. Marx
    1. Re:Better back your files up by fracai · · Score: 2, Informative

      Couple days?

      Install OfflineIMAP or Getmail, write the config file, schedule cron, launchd, etc., and be done with it. Shouldn't take more than an hour. The bulk of that should be working through the config and both products include healthy examples.

      --
      -- i am jack's amusing sig file
  21. Re:hmm Google shills by ciderVisor · · Score: 1

    astroturfers has been doing for MS for years on public forums (paid marketing spin).

    That's simply not true.

    --
    Squirrel!
  22. Broken Links by ciderVisor · · Score: 1

    Feck.

    --
    Squirrel!
  23. Re:hmm Google shills by jmpeax · · Score: 1

    Your comment and his moderation are an exact copy of what astroturfers has been doing for MS for years on public forums

    You're implying he's being paid by someone to express certain opinions. Where's your evidence? Or maybe you have none?

    Is it really so unlikely that someone might simply have an opinion different to yours and want to express it? Or is it that you are so insecure in your belief in the strength of your position that you feel the need to attribute different points of view to evil corporate conspiracies? Or is it that you are so utterly arrogant in your belief that things should work a certain way that you cannot fathom that anyone might prefer an alternative?

    It just irks me that instead of expressing your opinions and arguments properly and letting them stand on their own merit, you resort to making baseless accusations that, frankly, seem rather paranoid. Oh and if that's the best response you can come up with to the GPs argument, then it suggests there's not much substance to your own.

  24. Re:There's more on the web now. by uassholes · · Score: 1

    You have to be careful comparing your search experiences from 10 years ago.

  25. Re:Developers aren't IT? by jmpeax · · Score: 1

    if you are saying that developers are not part of Information Technology, you are full of shit

    IT (as an area of work) usually refers to IT support staff such as network administrators. Development is, generally, the writing of software.

    IT as a general term can refer to pretty much anything directly or indirectly related to something using a microchip, so in that sense I suppose developers work in IT. But this use of the definition is so generic that it's not really useful at all, so dividing development and IT (as most people do) makes more sense.

    you are full of shit

    That was pretty senseless, wasn't it?

  26. Re:hmm Google shills by steveo777 · · Score: 1

    goats.ex?

    --
    This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
  27. Re:You think they're not evil already, that's funn by Atzanteol · · Score: 1

    Your irrefutable facts and infallible logic have convinced me. I mean, you're *so* right! And think about it - North Korea sees Teh Google just sitting there. It only makes sense that they have total access too!

    --
    "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

    - Charles Darwin
  28. Re:hmm - reasons to open source by SlowMovingTarget · · Score: 1
    There are only really two reasons why a business would distribute its software as open source.
    1. The software in question is a compliment to the company's product or service ("commoditize the compliment").
    2. Software similar to the software in question currently provides a competitive advantage to a competitor.

    Why should Google give up a competitive advantage when that would only increase their competitors' reach into their market? Even the inventor of the light bulb filed a patent, so that anyone willing to build the device for their own factory could do so. They just wouldn't be able to sell the product.

  29. Re:Developers aren't IT? by halltk1983 · · Score: 1

    The secretary will be thrilled that you just promoted her to IT staff, just for playing solitaire and typing letters instead of hand-writing them.

    --
    Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
  30. GFS doesn't do it justice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They should've called it GOOFS.

  31. Re:Developers aren't IT? by networkzombie · · Score: 1

    I stated developers are in IT. Are secretaries developers? Since you are having trouble understanding, I can only assume you are a developer, and obviously you don't want to be in IT. I will recommend that all developers report to HR rather than the IT Manager.

  32. Re:hmm Google shills by MeatBag+PussRocket · · Score: 1

    are you so amped up about the healthcare debate you wanted to start slinging buzzwords here? astroturfing and spin? really? is there some sort of secret plot by google to own peoples minds? do you also fear black helicopters?

    --
    i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
  33. Re:You think they're not evil already, that's funn by itsybitsy · · Score: 1

    There is a wee little thing called the Patriot Act dude that they used to spy on Americans telephone calls and internet messages so hooking into The Google wouldn't be a problem at all.

  34. Re:You think they're not evil already, that's funn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're a twat. The warrantless wiretapping program was established by executive order, not the PATRIOT Act. The companies involved were telecoms like AT&T and Verizon, who voluntarily installed NSA equipment on their networks. It was likely illegal, but the courts refused to grant standing to anyone who tried to bring a lawsuit, so the matter probably won't ever be decided.

    This is all very well-documented and well-attested. What is not well-documented or well-attested is your paranoid assertion that Google gave the NSA free run over their network. Your assertion is also stupid when one considers the corporate culture and TOSes of the relevant companies: AT&T and Verizon are fucking dicks, and their TOSes pretty much deny any semblance of liability if they leak your data, whereas Google has a good history and makes good promises on the subject of user privacy.

    In short, please STFU or at least do some reading before you post on a complicated subject. Slashdot is full enough of loud, uninformed morons.

  35. Re:Developers aren't IT? by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 1

    Meh. Somewhere in there I was a sysadmin for about ten years too. Also DBA. We had to wear many hats, talent was hard to find and the schools weren't turning them out yet. And if you'd read my post you'd see my work does involve a computer - I've been in the computing industry continuously for forty years or so and have done pretty much every thing in it at least once, including designing cables and setting up some rather large networks. Out of all that, I'm really only proud of the development work I've done, and a few innovations that made it into ITIL. The rest was just a job. Respect? Well, you're allowed to insult your friends.

    --
    Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
  36. Re:Developers aren't IT? by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 1

    Somewhere there is a village missing its idiot.

    --
    Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
  37. Re:You think they're not evil already, that's funn by itsybitsy · · Score: 1

    "You're a twat. ... In short, please STFU or at least do some reading before you post on a complicated subject. Slashdot is full enough of loud, uninformed morons." - AC

    Ok, that's a great way to start off a dialog. Oh, right you're attempting to incite a flame war. How interesting.

    "The warrantless wiretapping program was established by executive order, not the PATRIOT Act." - AC

    So what? It's irrelevant, not that I agree with the accuracy of your statements. The point that you miss is that they can spy on us if they want to and it's better to assume that they are than that they are not especially after the entire wiretapping that they did do illegally.

  38. Re:Developers aren't IT? by halltk1983 · · Score: 1

    Actually, network admin for a small ISP.

    Though I do write scripts from time to time.

    I have friends who are developers, and they wouldn't classify themselves as IT. I personally think it requires more than use of a computer to be in IT. If you repair, replace, install or upgrade (also known as "service") the computer systems that are used by the staff or customers, including network equipment, desktops, and servers, you just might be in IT.

    --
    Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.