[ivdfs-devel] Re: Greetings

[Nigel K. <nk...@lb...>]

Yo,

Stupid subject line.

> Just a thought regarding the client/server as opposed to the P2P
>  architecture, the way I see it is that doing a P2P system would be
>  beneficial in the sense of collaborative editing. On the other hand, y=
ou
>  could end up with a client/server architecture as well, through the us=
e of
>  dedicated servers, which just mirror the network filesystem as a whole=
=2E It
>  would allow, say, 2 workstations and a backup server to be constantly =
synced
>  together,

I think the subject is getting a bit confused.

P2P is peer-to-peer. Defined as each peer being equal in the duties it
performs. This is what we want. It eliminates the single point of
failure with a master-slave architecture.


> whereas with a client-server structure you wouldn't have that
>  advantage. Really the only difference would be that a workstation runn=
ing
>  IVDFS would be able to accept updates and update its own local copy, a=
s well
>  as sending updates to the "server(s)", and the "server(s)" would be ab=
le to
>  function as
> workstations as well, and write to its own local system and update the =
other
> machines on the grid. And, more importantly, the filesystem /could/ sti=
ll
> function as the proposed client/server layout.

This is the behavior were after.

The point I tried to make is the goal for ivdfs is not anonymous file
sharing, for instance bittorrent, gnutella ... etc. Or storing of
anonymous data in using hashes ... etc. It could be designed into ivdfs,
I have nothing against that, its just not one of the primary goals for
the project.

The primary goal is replication and raid-like behavior for high
availability file storage across different networks, servers or whatever
in the simplest manner possible, and to preserve the underlying
filesystem in such a way that using plain replications its possible to
stop ivdfs and still access the files on the local filesystem.

So to address your comment above, one could mount a server fs on his/her
workstation and have it setup in such a way that only files in ones own
directory be replicated and the rest pulled directly off the server, or
any other way in which you see fit  :o)


-Nigel