> What I find interesting is that OCFS2 was not even in the list of
> cluster file systems presented by David.  If a shop has Oracle and
> might consider clustering Oracle (may be RAC), would it make sense to
> look at anything else but OCFS2?

It's an option, but it's not that widespread yet, or at least in the
people I come into contact with. I think there's also a perception
(whether accurate or not) that OCFS2 is intended to serve only the
requirements of Oracle. The HPC community has been burned in the past by
vendor-supplied infrastructure like this, and they tend to be skeptical
of general suitability claims. The recent decrease in interest in
OpenGFS is fairly symptomatic of this mindset.

> Now if that same shop needs clustering for non-Oracle guests, would it
> make sense to have two different type of clustering file systems?

Well, if you have geodiverse systems, then you don't have much choice.
With the exception of AFS, the cluster file systems are very heavily
oriented to collocated systems and storage (AFS is designed to
accommodate WAN connections). Beyond that, the performance
characteristics of the various CFSes are somewhat tuned to particular
kinds of problem. It depends on what kind of problem you want to solve. 

There's also a question of administration tooling. Managing most of the
cluster file systems involve fairly specialized skills; they're not like
local systems. If you've already put investment into one, OCFS2 isn't
enough better than the other options to change direction when Oracle
will run OK on any of the others. 

So far, I'm not all that impressed with OCFS. DEC's ADVFS was quite a
bit more sophisticated, IMHO, and had much better management tooling. 

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