I hear that several universities are beginning to use a DAV-based institutional file system. The name Xythos has been mentioned.
I am wondering if anyone has done a comparison of features, performance, security, and scalability between AFS and DAV. In particular, do the big AFS shops of the past still believe that AFS is The Way?
I suppose that depends. It depends on whether you are going to do things the right way (smart), or do things the wrong way (dumb). Using DAV is dumb. Using AFS is smart. Yes, I'm showing my butt here. Why?
Let's look at it this way... DAV protocol is an attempt to allow file sharing over HTTP. However you look at it, you are using a web browser technology to do your file sharing. I now ask you, how many of you are running your applications off the web? Word processors? Mathematics and scientific applications? Graphics and multimedia? No? Then why in the world would you even attempt to build a file system architecture (which by many accounts needs to be the most reliable of all your networking services) over a protocol that was originally only invented to be a hypertext page display technology? There are so many reasons not to do this I can't even think straight. This is a perfect example of "just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should".
AFS was built from scratch as a true enterprise wide network file system. AFS is designed to be Internet capable. AFS already has SSO, strong encryption, global namespace, volume replication and location services, fault tolerance, ACL security, user ACL groups, local caching, etc. AFS allows your client to be automatically directed to the proper file server for your volumes so you don't need to go through a silly gateway server like DAV. DAV is just a poor man's way to grab and drop files onto a remote file server. DAV was never never intended to be a real file system in any sense of the word. As someone has already stated in this thread, DAV is just a copy/lock/sync technology.
Since the web browser was invented many people have been pushing to make just about everything but the kitchen sink work over that stupid protocol. From portals to ASP applications, and now file sharing. It just doesn't make sense to try and rewrite everything to work over port 80. That stupid port is now being layered to death. And, because of this layering, everything that works over it is s.l.o.w.
I suppose I'm being rash here using words like stupid and dumb, but anybody who's going to build an enterprise solution for network file sharing should really think deeply about what technology is best for the job. Don't let higher management get caught up on buzz word marketed technologies.
DAV is not the solution you are looking for. Almost anything is better than DAV. Don't do it.
This rant is entirely my own opinion based on years in the trenches as a systems programmer. Your mileage may vary.
Rodney
Rodney M. Dyer Windows Systems Programmer Mosaic Computing Group William States Lee College of Engineering University of North Carolina at Charlotte Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.coe.uncc.edu/~rmdyer Phone (704)687-3518 Help Desk Line (704)687-3150 FAX (704)687-2352 Office 267 Smith Building
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