Excerpts from mail: 7-Jul-94 Re: e-mail over AFS ! Marc [EMAIL PROTECTED] (1672)
> But using the filesystem as the
> fundamental infrastructure isn't going to give you scalability or
> manageability. It's going to give you a mess.
The proposed mail infrastructure is client/server via POP or IMAP, using
SMTP and sendmail for transport. The only feature associated with the
file system is the mail store.
Distributing the mail store lets administrators manage large amounts of
data in an orderly fashion by manipulating filesets (volumes) through
software management, rather than by servicing individual machines and
disks. This can facilitate centralized backup procedures, enhance
system security and ease administrative burdens associated with managing
system upgrades, repairing faulty equipment and planning for expanded
network growth. The costs of distributing the mail store are primarily
centered around performance degradation issues, and perhaps technical
implementation problems.
Neither Microsoft nor Novell use distributed file systems today,
obviously. But that's their proposed direction, or so we're told. As
things are, many, many individuals need to be involved in managing large
PC dominated networks, and much waste can be attributed to needless
server, software and manpower redundancy.
The unmanageability of today's commercial NOSs in large networks
underscores the need to distribute services under a hierarchical
management scheme. Deploying a common (distributed) file system
throughout the enterprise -- at least at the server level -- can help
that effort a great deal, though I surely agree its not a cure-all, and
probably not advisable in all network applications.
Maybe the POP/IMAP mail store can't conveniently be placed in DFS, for
technical reasons. But if can, it would be nice.
