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Google Two Years Into Overhaul of the Google File System

Posted by samzenpus on from the we-can-make-it-better dept.

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."

3 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. 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 :)

  2. 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...

  3. 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