I would appreciate everyone's view point on this subject...
I believe most people on this mailing list use and like AFS. It has puzzled
me a long time why AFS has not taken off on the Internet. Other inferior
network file systems, such as NFS and Microsoft Dfs, are rushing to define
themselves as *the* Internet file system. At the same time, AFS, the file
system that has been working on the Internet long before the web started,
seems to be willingly waiting for someone else to take its market opportunity
away.
It is a HUGE opportunity that we are talking about here! Internet service
providers have been connecting an ever-increasing number of businesses/home
users to the Internet. But, why AFS is still only connecting just
universities and national labs - same as 10 years ago. Why hasn't any ISP set
up an AFS cell for its subscribers? Why do we still have to live with the
stupid FTP for uploading our home pages or sharing files through ISP's? Why
can't users/businesses use a general purpose Internet file system like AFS,
instead of using clumsy work-arounds? I should be able edit my home pages and
save them directly to the AFS server provided by my ISP - just one example!
I set up an NT AFS client at home the other day, and, through an ISP dial-up,
I was able to traverse the university cells. But what I really like to see
would be cells like aol.com, pacbell.net, etc where my friends/family may
share files with me EASILY (without the efforts setting up web pages and doing
the stupid FTP).
I know part of the problems is that there is no free Windows 9x clients. But
are there any insurmountable technical difficulties? There are Windows 9x NFS
clients and there is an NT AFS client. I don't think Windows 9x AFS client
would be so difficult to do. But can it be free? Make the client free or
give the market to Microsoft who is making everything (including the CIFS
client) free to kill competition first! The business model should be "selling
the servers"!!! At least the AFS clients should be made free (free download,
free ISP bundling) to non-business users. Let everyone experience and love
AFS. Once AFS becomes the de-facto standard for file sharing, applications
will start taking advantage of AFS, and there will be an explosion in the AFS
server market.
ISP's can be one good starting point for AFS' Internet march. Once one major
ISP starts providing AFS servers to subscribers, user will start using it for
sharing files with friends and family with easy pointing and clicking,
applications will soon see AFS as a viable way of internet file accessing, and
ISP administrators will enjoy AFS' scalability and manageability. Other ISP
will follow and ball will be rolling. The AFS server market may start like the
RealPlayer and it may become as huge (or even bigger than) as the web-server
market.
Granted, AFS has areas to be worked on such as performance improvements for
modem-speed access, file locking, and more general authentication/authorization
(such as public-key certificate based) mechanisms. But it already works on
the Internet today and it has the lead in terms of its Internet nature,
scalability and manageability. Pessimistic minds may say that Microsoft will
take over no matter what. Well, I don't mind hating the monopolistic monster,
but it would really be a shame to see a working Internet file system sitting
there 10+ years to wait for the blow from Microsoft.
What is AFS waiting for, really???
Shyh-Wei Luan
IBM Almaden Research Center
408-927-1893 (O)
408-927-4192 (FAX)
