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NetApp Threatens Sellers of Appliances Running ZFS

Posted by Soulskill on from the they-also-invented-the-box-and-the-bucket dept.

eldavojohn writes "ZFS is licensed under the CDDL and is considered to be open source, but NetApp is sending threatening legal letters to startups who look to offer ZFS on NAS appliances. This assault on Coraid has a few people worried about the future of ZFS as NetApp rears its ugly head yet again. The CEO of Coraid replied to NetApp's demands, saying, 'We made the decision to suspend shipment after receiving a legal threat letter from NetApp Inc., suggesting that the open-source ZFS file system planned for inclusion with our EtherDrive Z-Series infringes NetApp patents.' Will NetApp effectively destroy any future ZFS might have enjoyed?"

60 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. why? by pak9rabid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wait...doesn't the filesystem get created by the user of the storage device? I.E., the storage system gets hooked up to your system(s), the OS sees them as raw block devices, then the user generally puts the filesystem on top of the block device.....is this not the way the EtherDrives work?

    1. Re:why? by natehoy · · Score: 4, Informative

      What you say is true for LOCAL storage, but EtherDrives are NAS (Network Attached Storage) as mentioned in the summary.

      This means they come preformatted, but the machines that access the storage are using Samba or Windows File Sharing or whatever to access it, so the client PCs do not see the filesystem on the NAS box.

      --
      "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
    2. Re:why? by pak9rabid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ugh..nevermind..I misread that...me = stupid.

    3. Re:why? by natehoy · · Score: 5, Informative

      I know you've already replied that you misunderstood, but just in case anyone else is confused by this...

      This is a NAS, which is itself a server. Support for the filesystem is built into the NAS box. The NAS box then exposes the data it stores on that filesystem to the network using network-appropriate protocols.

      Anyone wanting to access it would use a networking standard like Samba, Windows File Sharing, FTP, or whatever services the NAS box allows.

      Of course, they'd also access the management tools (nowadays generally a small web server also built into the NAS box).

      None of the clients would need to support the underlying filesystem that the NAS box uses. In fact, they wouldn't even be allowed to know what that filesystem is.

      Back when I had Windows boxes at home, they had absolutely no problems reading shares I made on my Linux box. The Linux box could be formatted ext, Reiser, or anything I wanted that Linux supported.

      As long as I never tried to take a hard drive out of the Linux box and put it in the Windows box, of course. Then it becomes local storage, and Windows would have to support the filesystem in order to read it.

      --
      "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
    4. Re:why? by mysidia · · Score: 4, Informative

      ZFS is not encumbered by asshattery any more than Linux is.

      It's encumbered by a patent dispute

      While Linux is encumbered by the SCO mess, which is basically the same thing, except related to copyrights and ownership of codes, rather than ownership of the whole concept of copy on write.

    5. Re:why? by s73v3r · · Score: 2, Funny

      Too bad. That product would have been killer.

  2. Re:If it really does infringe... by hilather · · Score: 2, Informative

    They should go after Oracle/Sun and stop threatening people using the file system. Shenanigans!

    After actually reading the article (I know what was I thinking right?), it does mention that NetApp Filed a lawsuit against Sun back in 2007..

  3. Boycott by Improv · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We need a site to organise boycotts of companies that abuse the patent, trademark, or copyright system. Not everyone would need to sign on to all of them, but anyone should be able to post a call and explain their reasoning. If we got enough techies onto it who would use it at work, it could have some muscle.

    --
    For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
    1. Re:Boycott by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We need a site to organise boycotts of companies that abuse the patent, trademark, or copyright system. Not everyone would need to sign on to all of them, but anyone should be able to post a call and explain their reasoning.

      It's called Slashdot.

      If we got enough techies onto it who would use it at work, it could have some muscle.

      Practice has shown that you won't get enough techies that are actually in charge of software/hardware purchase decisions on any scale sufficient for it to have some muscle.

    2. Re:Boycott by Grishnakh · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Of course they do. They are much better qualified to make purchasing decisions than the low-level people who will be working with the products selected. After all, the sales reps from places like NetApp told them that their expensive products are better, over expensive dinners with wine. Who do you think you are, someone important?

    3. Re:Boycott by sglewis100 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How many techies actually make purchasing decisions at their workplaces? Not many. Most are made by high-up managers, under advice from sales reps.

      Where on earth do you work, and can you find better? I'm not currently in a decision making role, although I have been, but I am in a role where I help gather requirements, evaluation specifications, invite vendors for product demos, work on getting evals / visiting labs / visiting and talking with other customers, review quotes, beat up reps on pricing, make a formal recommendation, and wait for my boss to get it done. We have a purchasing department... but they just purchase things they are told to. We also have a CFO, but if we're doing our diligence, and meeting our budget, he's not often overruling us.

  4. So, what happened? by somaTh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Wikipedia article on NetApp talks about them bringing a suit against Sun/ZFS and that Sun countersued, but doesn't mention the verdict. What happened there and why isn't the verdict applying here?

    --
    Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
    1. Re:So, what happened? by brion · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's still ongoing, naturally: Sun/Oracle has a page with updates on the case over the last few years.

      --

      Chu vi parolas Vikipedion?

  5. Re:ZFS was developed and trademarked by Sun by dnaumov · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Easy. NetApp sues a small vendor, wins and then uses this win as leverage in their battle against Oracle.

  6. Patents invalidated, awaiting appeal... by KonoWatakushi · · Score: 5, Informative

    See the second post in the recent thread on zfs-discuss: Legality and the future of zfs...

    It doesn't sound as if Netapp has a leg to stand on, so they are trying to shake down the companies while they can. Where have we seen this before?

  7. Explains OSX Server pulling ZFS by bigredradio · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I guess this explains OSX Server walking away from ZFS because of "license issues". Since Apple walked away in the 11th hour, I wonder if there is some real validity to NetApp's argument (at least legally).

    --
    Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
    1. Re:Explains OSX Server pulling ZFS by Joce640k · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ZFS isn't *essential* to Apple so why would they fight a patent battle in court? There's plenty of other file systems in the sea.

      --
      No sig today...
    2. Re:Explains OSX Server pulling ZFS by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 4, Informative

      Except that the courts and the patent office are saying otherwise in NetApp's case against Sun.

    3. Re:Explains OSX Server pulling ZFS by eddy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We should all have learned by now that how people and companies react to legal threats doesn't have ANYTHING to do with so-called merits. 'The' SCOX case went on for about seven years and they had NOTHING. People paid them "linux tax" while they had NOTHING, could show NOTHING, made increasingly bizarre and outrageous claims and could in fact never WIN ANYTHING. People still paid.

      The lesson from that of course is that being a tick on the ass of the system it's a perfectly valid way to lift a nice salary and appear important, so really, why not?

      --
      Belief is the currency of delusion.
    4. Re:Explains OSX Server pulling ZFS by MachineShedFred · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In order to license something, the licensor needs to be willing to enter into an agreement. Don't be so sure that NetApp wants to do that, when they can sell overpriced filers to Apple's customers.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  8. The story so far. by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Wikipedia article on NetApp talks about them bringing a suit against Sun/ZFS and that Sun countersued, but doesn't mention the verdict.

    Read all about it (the story so far, as presented by Sun/Oracle): http://www.sun.com/lawsuit/zfs, which provides links to a number of legal documents and patents and rulings from the PTO.
    Basically, the patent which was central to NetApp's claim of infringement was found not to apply to ZFS. A second patent asserted to be infringed was rejected on reexamination by the PTO, but NetApp is still squirming through the appeals process. The current round of threats could be NetApp's last gasp/whimper on the topic.

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
  9. More complicated by a bit.. by Junta · · Score: 2, Insightful

    NetApp uses WAFL on their NAS. A filesystem they invented before ZFS. They claim ZFS violates patents of WAFL.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    1. Re:More complicated by a bit.. by poetmatt · · Score: 4, Informative

      using WAFL on a nas is not any more inventive than using ZFS on a NAS. Again, the parent is correct.
      Using any filesystem for a NAS is not inventive. It's been around for quite some time. They're also going after distributors rather than attack the ZFS patents they purportedly precede.

      It's also quite impossible to prove any sort of patent violation for using ZFS on a NAS simply due to the competing software being patented.

      If I use a product X, of which is infringing upon product y, I am not liable for uses of product X. The patent system doesn't support 3rd party liability. it's just distributors buckling under legal threats.

    2. Re:More complicated by a bit.. by reebmmm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I use a product X, of which is infringing upon product y, I am not liable for uses of product X. The patent system doesn't support 3rd party liability. it's just distributors buckling under legal threats.

      You would be very, very wrong. Your use of an infringing product still makes you an infringer. (35 U.S.C. Sec. 271(a))("whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention...). Now, there are default rules that say that a purchaser of a good is "indemnified" from claims of infringement by the seller. (See UCC Art. 2 Sec. 312) This is typically how end user avoid litigation.

      In addition, you're also wrong to think that the patent system doesn't support third party liability. It does. One party's can be sued for another person's direct infringement. It's called "indirect infringement." (35 U.S.C. Sec. 271 (b) and(c)). The rules on when this apply are stated in the statute and are not always so easy to discern. One way to think about it: a party cannot escape liability by simply knowing moving the infringement downstream.

      And, just so that you know, it is a somewhat common strategy that a patent owner sues the end user, direct infringer. There is nothing worse as a supplier than receiving about 30 letters from angry customers seeking indemnification from the infringement suit. This is a great technique to annoy the party with deep pockets and drive home the advantages of settling early.

  10. Re:ZFS was developed and trademarked by Sun by Junta · · Score: 2, Informative

    NetApp invented WAFL before ZFS. They claim ZFS itself infringes on WAFL technology.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  11. Indemnification by rayvd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Oracle should offer to provide indemnification to vendors. They've got a large patent portfolio of their own and obviously large assets to make them a much more formidable foe to NetApp.

    1. Re:Indemnification by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sun already does indemnify it's customers. Schwartz pointed this out when NetApp's rumblings against Sun first happened.

      First, the basics. Sun indemnifies all its customers against IP claims like this. That is, we've always protected our markets from trolls, so customers can continue to use ZFS without concern for spurious patent and copyright issues. We stand behind our innovation, and our customers.

    2. Re:Indemnification by Macrat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sun already does indemnify it's customers. Schwartz pointed this out when NetApp's rumblings against Sun first happened.

      Neither Schwartz or Sun exists anymore.

  12. NetApp by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Much as I hate these patent cases, perhaps this one has merit. NetApp built it's bussiness being a vendor of NAS systems that had extensible file systems that spanned clever raid structures, and automatic snapshoting and they did this long before ZFS. Those are the key features of ZFS. And when you pair that with NAS, well that's a NetApp in a box. I dont know what NetApps patents claim but what they did was not obvious at the time and they are actively a seller of that, not a patent troll.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:NetApp by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      NetApp built it's bussiness being a vendor of NAS systems that had extensible file systems that spanned clever raid structures, and automatic snapshoting and they did this long before ZFS. Those are the key features of ZFS.

      VMS did it earlier. Screw NetApp and their overpriced, underfeatured, patented crap. Really. I mean that.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    2. Re:NetApp by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 5, Informative

      The case doesn't have merit because the courts have already ruled that ZFS doesn't infringe NetApp's patent No. 6,892,211 which is at the heart of their infringement claims. This is just a shakedown.

    3. Re:NetApp by h4rr4r · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Bullshit, look at mainframes many of those had these features. A NAS is just a server with a bunch of disk.

    4. Re:NetApp by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ZFS does a _lot_ of the things WAFL has done for years. I don't really think those approaches should necessarily be able to be patented though, but as it is now, you can see how something like ZFS -- very similar to WAFL in a lot of ways would raise some red flags and at least warrant some investigation (whether or not we agree with the principles there).

      Chrome does a _lot_ of the things MSIE has done for years. I don't really think those approaches should necessarily be able to be patented though, but as it is now, you can see how something like Chrome -- very similar to MSIE in a lot of ways would raise some red flags and at least warrant some investigation (whether or not we agree with the principles there).

      I suppose they realize this and are just doing their corporate "due diligence" in aggressively trying to protect their IP.

      Screw their "due diligence". They're just being desperate assholes and everyone knows it.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    5. Re:NetApp by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 2, Informative

      Much as I hate these patent cases, perhaps this one has merit. NetApp built it's bussiness being a vendor of NAS systems that had extensible file systems that spanned clever raid structures, and automatic snapshoting and they did this long before ZFS. Those are the key features of ZFS. And when you pair that with NAS, well that's a NetApp in a box. I dont know what NetApps patents claim but what they did was not obvious at the time and they are actively a seller of that, not a patent troll.

      Sorry, either ZFS violates their patents in all of its uses, or they have no claim. If I build a machine that makes widgets and patent it, then you build a machine that builds widgets using a completely different technique, my patent does not apply to your machine. This sums up a large part of the problem with software patents, it is very hard to see whether a piece of software reaches the same results as another piece of software using different methods or not.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    6. Re:NetApp by Bert64 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Competing on product merit is less profitable because you actually have to invest in improving your product, you can't just keep selling the same old shit at ridiculously high prices and hope the competitors don't overtake and undercut you.

      --
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    7. Re:NetApp by moggie_xev · · Score: 2, Informative

      There is lots of things I agree with in this post however.... They do just work and they keep on working

      uptime 10:07pm up 634 days, 2:48 15108652057 NFS ops, 2183855307 CIFS ops, 3315 HTTP ops, 0 FCP ops, 0 iSCSI ops

      Ontap 8.0 in 7 mode does support up to 90TB in a single aggregate. However given that I am evaluating systems that scale to petabytes in a single filesystem....

  13. They're afraid of ZFS by guruevi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ZFS is a game changer in the storage industry. While people are buying $250,000 NetApp installations, the exact same hardware, performance and connectivity will go for $5000 of high-end hardware and a couple of hours work with ZFS. $250,000 will easily buy you a Petabyte worth of redundant ZFS storage. Even the reasons you would otherwise buy NetApp or another proprietary storage solution (compression, de-duplication, checksums) is all implemented by ZFS.

    NetApp recently lost their patents based on prior art (they basically ripped off somebody's paper and put in a patent for it), appealed it of course and now they are trying to squeeze the last money out of small shops before they get the smack down from the patent office. This is a very similar case to the Caldera/SCO cases.

    --
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    1. Re:They're afraid of ZFS by macs4all · · Score: 3, Informative

      Will your 5000 dollar box call home, have a staff of engineers at the ready, replace it's own drives and be constantly updated with firmware?

      Um, NONE of those feature have ONE SINGLE THING to do with the underlying filesystem. You could make a NAS out of NTFS or HFS+ or (I'm guessing) EXT3 drives, that used something like the hard drives' SMART statuses to place orders over the intarwebs for a new HD (billed to your credit card) that would appear automagically at your doorstep. Big fucking deal.

      As for the "auto-updating" firmware: Who in the FUCK wants ANYTHING as CRITICAL as a NAS to "auto update" its FIRMWARE?!?!? It can ASK; but I SURE as FUCK don't want my NAS to suddenly be HOSED (or simply inaccessible) just because some crackhead droid at NetApp posted the wrong binary (or even the right one!) to the "updates" directory on their server.

      And as for a "staff of engineers at the ready", if your product is STABLE, you don't need "a staff of engineers at the ready", you simply need a few TECHNICIANS that can competently answer users' questions and address their problems. All those "engineers" do is ARTIFICIALLY increase the "reliability" of the product. Afterall, unless the "engineer" uses a matter-energy transporter to instantly appear at your NAS' side, it is HIGHLY unlikely that they will be able to help you regain accesss to, let alone RECOVER, your data ANY faster than a tech-support droid that you reach on the phone.

      And, as I said before, NONE of those "features" have ANYTHING to do with "WAFL vs. ZFS". It is all about APPLICATION CODE that someone added to the "NAS Controller" (read: Embedded Linux Computer) running the NAS APPLICATION.

      Jeezus! For a supposed "geek" site, some people on here are pretty fucking IGNORANT of how these SYSTEMS are designed, and just how many interlocking pieces-parts make up a NAS product. The particular filesystem used by the NAS Controller is but a small (and easily-changed by the manufactuer) part of the overall SYSTEM. Calling home to order a hard drive is only one small (and quite obvious) step from "emailing the owner" when an error is detected in the NAS, which is a feature many NAS' have (I just saw it this week on a Buffalo LinkStation NAS I was working on). Same thing with all the other "proprietary" features that NetApp sells to their oh-so-gullible customers.

      WAFL may in fact be a wonderful FS; but the "features" you mention are simply not germane to the debate. Or to WAFL.

    2. Re:They're afraid of ZFS by kindbud · · Score: 3, Informative

      While people are buying $250,000 NetApp installations, the exact same hardware, performance and connectivity will go for $5000 of high-end hardware and a couple of hours work with ZFS.

      Having evaluated ZFS on a Sun server at that price point, I can state with a good degree of certainty that this is not even close to true. ZFS suffers from several show-stopping performance problems that made it unsuitable as replacement for NetApp filers even on our small applications. Last I checked, the issue we opened with Sun are still outstanding.

      ZFS is probably OK for hosting a file archive, or staging backups. It is far from OK for hosting a Oracle or Mysql database.

      --
      Edith Keeler Must Die
    3. Re:They're afraid of ZFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ZFS is probably OK for hosting a file archive, or staging backups. It is far from OK for hosting a Oracle or Mysql database.

      You may want to tell that to SmugMug:

              http://don.blogs.smugmug.com/2008/10/10/success-with-opensolaris-zfs-mysql-in-production/

      Greenplum also doesn't seem to have received your message:

              http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/openstorage_and_really_big_data

      Similarly with Joyent:

              http://joyeur.com/2010/07/02/on-solaris/

      (shrug)

    4. Re:They're afraid of ZFS by guruevi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There is no magic that NetApp adds that would make it any faster or slower than a comparable system using ZFS. I've seen, implemented and used both systems, they both use commodity hardware. There is no reason your ZFS should work any worse when you get down to the wire than your NetApp appliance unless you're doing something wrong. If you're comparing Sun's RAIDZ with their proprietary RAID0 then you're looking at the wrong implementation for a database. If you add a couple of L2ARC and ZIL SSD caches to your ZFS system, your database should be able to sustain well over 10000 IOPS - on commodity hardware. The other problem with NetApp is it's limits - 16TB is laughable in my field (even 16PB will be laughable in less than a decade).

      When I look at NetApp's white papers, all I see is a similar implementation to ZFS. NVRAM as caches, aggregated writes, snapshots... As I said, they're afraid because ZFS does everything NetApp does and more for a heck of a lot less. NetApp seems to have stopped developing major features which could have distinguished them from other systems and instead just focuses on selling as much systems in the next few years as possible and possibly litigate to get some more cash (the SCO business model).

      --
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    5. Re:They're afraid of ZFS by chef_raekwon · · Score: 2, Informative

      While people are buying $250,000 NetApp installations, the exact same hardware, performance and connectivity will go for $5000 of high-end hardware and a couple of hours work with ZFS

      lies. having worked in this industry for far too long, when I see bullshit claims like this, I have to call it. There is no way in hell you will get multiple trays of 15k rpm FCAL storage and redudant FAS controllers for 5k, I dont care if you're Samuel Jackson in the negotiator.

      I run multiple datacenters with emc, hp and netapp filers -- if you pay 250k for a netapp installation, you're pretty much getting what you pay for. what you're paying for is IOPS, disk caching, and throughput. You can turn to just about any storage provider, you will pay the same price for similar enterprise grade hardware. All I ask is that when you're stringing your two cans together, you leave out the reference to how alike it is to a 'real enterprise grade' product -- because talking about petabytes of SATA isn't even in the same continent, let alone the same country.

      --
      We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
  14. btrfs successor by mlts · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Even though btrfs isn't in production yet, we really need a successor to it not just to replace the filesystem, but to replace the LVM layer. ZFS isn't just a filesystem, but also goes one layer lower, coordinating RAID.

    I wish I had the cash to make an open source (GPL or BSD license preferably) bounty for the following in a filesystem/LVM replacement, since ZFS isn't going to be going past Sun hardware these days:

    1: Deduplication on the block level. This would be selectable because in some cases, there would be performance issues to it... but a good filesystem would stick heavily duplicated blocks on fast media (flash or inner cylinders).

    2: 64 bit CRCs. This way, a backup program just has to pull from the filesystem stored CRCs and it would know which files have been changed or not. This also helps with integrity checking.

    3: Compression. Selectable levels would be nice, from a fast zip based to bzip2 -v9.

    4: Encryption, perhaps like EncFS where encrypted directories can be cattached at will. Even better would be more elaborate (public key, smart card) key management.

    5: Block device encryption. It would be nice to install the OS, set a flag that all further writes will be encrypted to a key, then proceed to copy data to the machine. This way, the machine can get set up and (ab)used without waiting for disks to encrypt.

    6: TRIM support. Enough said.

    7: Ability to move data so one directory might be on a three-way mirror, while the rest of the filesystem sits on a RAID-Z equivalent. This way, critical documents are protected.

    8: Advanced snapshotting functionality. It would be great to be able to restore a machine by booting from a USB flash drive or CD, having the filesystem be configured to the hard disks at hand, then copy from a stored image, regardless of architecture or setup of the previous machine's drives were. This way, a machine could be snapshotted, it be moved to a completely different configuration, then restored. A good example of a nice way to restore would be IBM's Sysback utility for AIX, where one can completely redefine where data resides before kicking off a restore.

    9: Advanced attributes, where files can be flagged where if they are unlinked, the OS does a manual TRIM or multiple overwrite, and so on.

    10: Automatic repair of damage. Starting with Windows Server 2008, Windows does a background check to look for damage in mounted NTFS filesystems. This way, something like missing free space or other issues can be flagged before it bites someone in the next bootup. For example, when a machine is idle, it will compare written 64 bit CRCs to what is on disk to ensure that they match, and flag nonmatching files as possibly corrupt.

    11: Ability to add varying amounts of ECC to a filesystem. This way, the volume can take a lot of damage, but the files are highly likely to be still readable. A good example of this is Nero's SecureDisk, where it writes invisible ECC information to burned CDs/DVDs which can be used to piece together damaged files. This way, volumes that are stored for long term archiving can sustain damage, but there is a good chance of recovering the files, or at least knowing the files were damaged.

    1. Re:btrfs successor by Luke+has+no+name · · Score: 2, Insightful

      BTRFS already does multi-disk filesystems including RAID 0 and 1 by itself, bypassing LVM/mdadm AFAIK. RAID 5/6 is a planned feature.

      I don't know about the rest of the stuff you mentioned; I'm not a filesystem guy. Recommend any good books?

    2. Re:btrfs successor by eln · · Score: 2, Insightful

      but a good filesystem would stick heavily duplicated blocks on fast media (flash or inner cylinders).

      Why? Just because a block of data is duplicated all over your filesystem that doesn't mean it's accessed all that frequently. If I have a disk with 8,000 slightly different ghosted Linux disk images on it, I'm bound to have plenty of blocks that are identical in all of them, so deduplication would save me lots of space. However, since they're probably all just there for archival or testing purposes, and I only occasionally need to access any of them, putting those deduplicated blocks on fast storage would be a waste of my most expensive disks.

      Fast storage is for frequently accessed data, not heavily duplicated data. Most halfway decent network storage devices already have caching algorithms that will put frequently accessed data on fast storage, whether that's SSD or NVRAM (or both).

    3. Re:btrfs successor by dgatwood · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I wish I had the cash to make an open source (GPL or BSD license preferably) bounty for the following in a filesystem/LVM replacement, since ZFS isn't going to be going past Sun hardware these days:

      ...list of requirements...

      To which I would add:

      12. BSD-licensed. What's really needed is a robust filesystem that's ubiquitous---a filesystem that is supported across operating system platforms--- and let's face it, no GPL-licensed filesystem will ever darken the door of any OS except Linux, at least not as part of the OS. Even the *BSDs won't touch a GPLed filesystem except as a from-scratch rewrite. Forget about commercial UNIX vendors. And although you can gain partial support through little tricks like FUSE, such workarounds will never be as fast, as reliable, or as integrated into the whole user experience as a native filesystem would be.

      There's little point in taking any filesystem beyond academic research into a production-quality filesystem if the resulting disks can't be moved from one machine to another without forcing users to being a single-OS shop. Most of the real world doesn't consist of single-OS shops. In fact, an ideal next-gen filesystem would integrate SAN capabilities at the filesystem level so that disks could not just be moved, but actively shared between boxes running Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, etc. That's just not likely to happen unless you choose a much more open license than the GPL.

      Don't get me wrong, I've written and licensed code under the GPL. There's nothing inherently wrong with the GPL for tools/utilities, GUI apps, and other end-user bits. For libraries, filesystems, drivers, and other code that is tightly coupled with the OS or software built on top of it, however, the GPL is really a rather poor choice. It sends the message, true or not, that you care more about dogma than interoperability, which is generally not a good thing. Ask me why I don't run either btrfs or ZFS.... It's the license.

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    4. Re:btrfs successor by Sinical · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm not gonna go through and do a feature check, but there is Ceph. It's still pretty early in the development, but looks pretty promising. It uses btrfs as the underlying filesystem.

      Someone put together 1.2PB of Glustre (with dual replication) at my company and it's been problem free so far...

    5. Re:btrfs successor by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Meh, personally I'd say LGPL so you don't get slightly incompatible file systems. With a BSD license the temptation is pretty big to keep the changes for yourself and say "works on our OS" while diverging from the common code base. Either that or a very detailed and exhaustive spec with a strict conformance test suite.

      --
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  15. Re:If it really does infringe... by jythie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And if I understood correctly, were not the patents involved in the lawsuit mostly invalidate?

  16. Re:Ummm it's their technology by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sorry buddy but the courts have ruled that ZFS doesn't infringe NetApp's patents. Read here and here. Cry more.

  17. Here, here... by multimediavt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Screw NetApp and their overpriced, underfeatured, patented crap. Really. I mean that.

    I totally and completely agree with that summary of NetApp

    With that out of the way, how does NetApp have any authority to enforce a license/patent on a piece of software they did not invent, nor hold the licensing for? ZFS was created by Sun and released under the CDDL. I am confused as to where NetApp fits into this equation other than being a troll of something that isn't even theirs to begin to troll with. I will do some digging online, but this is just effed up.

    1. Re:Here, here... by mea37 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Patents are funny that way. If I patent an invention and use it in Product X, and you come along and create Product Y which infringes my patent, then I can sue you (as you expect), and also I can sue anyone who uses, sells, or offers for sale Product Y. That's one of the reasons indemnity is a big deal when corporations look at OSS solutions, and it was the basis of many of SCO's legal threats back in the day.

      So you get the store down the street to sell Product Y, I can sue the store down the street. Bob buys Product Y from the store and puts it to use, in theory I can probably sue Bob. Sue enters into an OEM arrangement with you and embeds Product Y in Product Z, I can sue Sue, and Sue's distributors and users as well. All because I have a patent on something I did in Product X.

    2. Re:Here, here... by afidel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Netapp is claiming that ZFS infringes on multiple core WAFL (the filesystem behind their filer products) patents. They may have a point insofar as software patents are enforceable. Time and again the Sun engineers behind ZFS have referenced WAFL as being the closest comparable filesystem to ZFS. The patent enforcement against ZFS started after Sun in their pre-Oracle takeover death throws came to Netapp expecting $$$ millions for supposed patent infringement.

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    3. Re:Here, here... by Luminary+Crush · · Score: 5, Interesting

      So the story goes, this dates back to some interns who worked at NetApp and then went to Sun and perhaps influenced ZFS.

      The technology in WAFL is that of a pointer-based filesystem - which itself is pretty ingenious and is only now being feature-emulated (ZFS, BRTFS, etc).

      One can say what they want of Netapp's pricing, but the technology is extremely solid and simple to operate compared to managing Linux or Solaris boxes running a filesystem as a NAS; the snapshots are without I/O penalty and you can take a lot of them, the clustering is *FAR* simpler than anything happening on general-purpose OSes, the support for protocols is industry-leading (FCoE, NFSv4, SMB 2.0 - they have a codeshare w/ Microsoft and do not use a reverse-engineered Samba implementation or run any kind of Windows storage server like competitors do).

      ZFS has a lot of promise, but does not have nearly the performance that WAFL does (considering RAID-DP versus ZFS RAID6) and has only some of the feature set of mirroring, snapshot vaulting, filesystem and file cloning, WORM-compliance, etc. Companies don't want to bet their business on a science project of roll-your-own NAS which doesn't have the feature set the Netapps do, and no serious competitor (eg a company with the ability to financially stand behind the product) in the enterprise space has anything like the feature set.

      I work for a systems integrator and I've messed with hundreds of Netapps, Sun and Linux appliances, and competitors over the years. I use ZFS at home because I can't afford a Netapp (and wouldn't want to pay the electricity bill if I could!) but if I ran an IT department I'd put my data on a Netapp FAS over a ZFS appliance any day.

    4. Re:Here, here... by sjames · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sadly, all of that is true even if product Y was invented entirely from first principles by people with no knowledge of X, even if they did it at the same time as X was being invented.

      How anyone can claim that granting the patent to inventor X doesn't steal from inventor Y the fruits of his labor, I cannot say.

  18. Re:in the spirit of full disclosure.... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I suspect that they are going after NAS vendors simply because the NAS vendors are a more direct threat to their business.

    NetApp probably doesn't like that Sun, now Oracle, is using "their" features in direct-attached storage for Solaris boxes; but NetApp doesn't sell direct attached storage, so that isn't as much their problem(and Larry's lawyers are probably scary).

    If, on the other hand, the world starts sprouting outfits who are combining CDDL software+commodity disks+commodity NICs+modestly custom 'lots of SAS/SATA and redundant PSUs' chassis, NetApp suddenly has a whole bunch of competitors who can undercut them good and hard. That won't mean instant death or anything; but it certainly isn't good news for them.

  19. Hipocrites! Check out the founders patent ideals by jpswensen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/2007/09/netapp-sues-sun.html The victim has become the offender.

  20. Again... by Junta · · Score: 3, Insightful

    NetApp is suing Sun (and now Oracle) over ZFS because they *claim* it violates patents they hold that they implemented in their own WAFL fs. WAFL does predate ZFS. NetApp was granted patents in WAFL that ZFS seems to also do, but prior-art may have caused those patents to be invalid.

    They are suing vendors that also use ZFS probably because those vendors are either licensing from Oracle (in which case indemnification may just pass this on) or are using FreeBSD, which makes the link between the vendor and Oracle a bit more odd and possible has the vendor on the hook for liability.

    --
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  21. Re:ZFS was developed and trademarked by Sun by Galactic+Dominator · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes but Berkley invented FFS before WAFL. While not patented, WAFL implements many of the features of found in FFS eg cheap snapshots, meta-data structure(which allow WAFL to work as it does), etc.

    Both WAFL and ZFS are a fork of ideas and methods used in FFS. I don't know the nature of the patents NetApp holds, but if they are these features which ZFS implements then it would be terrible shame if they were able to control this market. That jeopardizes all similar FS's like HammerFS, and which ever linux fs is the next promised saviour as these are becoming more of a requirement than option.

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  22. NetApp Patent Lawsuit by vm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It might be worth reading through NetApp's original ZFS patent lawsuit vs Sun before making wild speculations. It seems to me that they are now trying to sue other, smaller companies after their original attempt to sue Sun had failed.