AFS Friends -- Here is an update on Transarc's progress in providing additions to AFS that allow integration with Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) solutions, including systems that are commercially available. As you know, we have been working with the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) to evaluate the changes and additions to AFS that they have created (under the name "Multi-resident AFS" or "M-R/AFS") which act, in part, to allow integration of AFS with such systems. We have spent the last several months in evaluation and discussions with PSC. We have decided not to incorporate the PSC modifications into the AFS product as the way Transarc will address HSM for AFS. We wish to sincerely thank the PSC for their discussions with us. We have learned a great deal from them about the concerns surrounding migration of large files in their computer environment. They have been at all times gracious with their time and expertise. We expect to continue to work with them as an ally in defining requirements and understanding migration issues. Briefly the reasons for our decision center on the very substantial size of the code changes for M-R/AFS. (This is due, in part, to additional, integral changes to the code base that PSC had to make in order to create MR/AFS.) Incorporating the PSC changes into our main-line AFS product would produce a significantly different code base. We have decided that with the available resources we cannot incorporate, integrate, port, optimize, and test the changes in a safe and timely fashion on the range of platforms that we support. Please be aware that we have not abandoned providing an archiving interface for AFS. We are now aggressively considering alternative approaches and architectures to solve this problem, and expect to post an update shortly. Also, those sites with AFS source licenses from Transarc that wish to work with the PSC modifications without support from Transarc can work with PSC directly to obtain their modified version of AFS. Please contact your Transarc sales representative concerning the necessary AFS licensing arrangements for receiving the PSC code. Philip Lehman
