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Date: Tue Sep 27 00:06:21 2011 +0200
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+<!--#include virtual="/samba/header.html" -->
+ <title>Samba - opening windows to a wider world</title>
+<!--#include virtual="/samba/global_menu.html" -->
+ <h2>2011 SNIA SDC Report: Summary</h2>
+
+<p>
+ <span class="meta-prep
meta-prep-author">Posted on</span> <a
href="http://www.hertel.org.uk/blog/?p=253"; title="12:30 pm"
rel="bookmark"><span class="entry-date">September 23, 2011</span></a> <span
class="meta-sep">by</span> <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n"
href="http://www.hertel.org.uk/blog/?author=1"; title="View all posts by
Chris">Chris</a></span>
+</p>
+
+ <div class="entry-content">
+ <h3>The 2011 SNIA SDC: Storage
Developers Circus</h3>
+<p><a href="http://www.storagedeveloper.org/";><img align="left" hspace="10"
vspace="5" class="alignleft"
src="http://www.snia.org/sites/default/files/120x240_trans.jpg"; alt="SDC 2011"
width="72" height="144" /></a>The annual <a title="Storage Developers
Conference" href="http://www.storagedeveloper.org/";>Storage Developers
Conference</a> is kind of like a five-ring circus. There are way too many
tracks to follow, all going on at once and all interesting to varying degrees
to varying people. It was a big show again this year, but this year it
didn’t matter what else was going on. The center of attention was
Microsoft’s center-ring act:Â <strong>SMB2.2</strong>.<br />
+<span id="more-253"></span><br />
+I have been going to the SNIA SDC every year since before it was the SDC. I
started going in 1997, when it was still “The CIFS Conference”.Â
Even before that, I went to lots of different computer conferences and shows.Â
Remember DECUS and DEXPO? Amiga DevCon? LISA-NT? I do.</p>
+<p>In all of those years, and all of those many conferences, this is the first
time I have ever said “Wow, that’s cool” at a Microsoft
presentation. So let me say it again: SMB2.2âWow, <em>that’s
cool</em>.</p>
+<p>It’s cool for a couple of big reasons and several smaller reasons.Â
The big reasons are these:</p>
+<ul>
+<li>This wasn’t just an overview and demonstration. They were giving
us advanced access to the technology. There are already <a
href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee941641.aspx";>draft
specifications</a> on Microsoft’s website. What isn’t yet
documented was covered in enough detail to give us a head-start, and they are
working with the SMB/CIFS community on anything that is baked enough to be
shared.</li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li>It was actually cool technology.</li>
+</ul>
+<p>On that second point, the more correct way to put it is to say that SMB2.2
is a cool <em>implementation</em> of cool technology. There is very little
that is truly new in SMB2.2. It’s all cool stuff that has been
fluttering around for a while, and has finally been caught and pinned down and
labeled and organized into a coherent system on a platform with enough market
share to make a difference. Both the client and server-sides are in sync, so
we won’t have to wait for the other half to be put together before the
first half is useful.</p>
+<h3>The Butterfly Collection</h3>
+<p>Butterflies generally don’t buzz, but we’ll list a few
buzzwords anyway.</p>
+<ul>
+<li><strong>Clusters</strong><br />
+A while back, Samba introduced the CTDB clustered database system, which
allowed Samba servers to run on top of clustered file systems in active/active
mode. Microsoft may have taken this as a bit of a challenge. SMB2.2
supports both file server clusters and application server (client) clusters.Â
These can be combined in [m Ã n] ways to scale with the workload.</li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li><strong>Multipath</strong><br />
+If wire speed is a bottleneck, add more wires. SMB2.2 dynamically adapts
itself to use any or all connection paths. This was demoed, using pre-alpha
code, during Microsoft’s keynote presentation. …and it worked.Â
…and it scaled almost linearly.</li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li><strong>RDMA</strong><br />
+SMB2.2 can be run over <a
href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/RDMA";>RDMA</a> (Remote
Direct Memory Access). This is particularly useful when building clusters,
but it has other implications. Most of all, RDMA is fast. It can run on top
of a variety of high-speed interconnects including <a
href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/InfiniBand";>InfiniBand</a>
and <a
href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/IWARP";>iWarp</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+<li><strong>Distributed Caching</strong><br />
+The previous SMB2 version, known as SMB2.1, included support for BranchCache,
a distributed caching system that leverages <a
href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Content-addressable_storage";><strong>content-addressable</strong></a>
data (data blocks indexed by hash values). SMB2.2 adds support for a new
version of BranchCache that allows for different content hashing algorithms.Â
In BranchCache V2 the hash type does not need to be specified, which provides
opportunities for vendors to create and utilize their own algorithms.</li>
+</ul>
+<p>These features are clearly game-changers, and they represent a serious
threat to NFSv4 and v4.1, which have yet to gain much in the way of traction.Â
NFSv4 also supports transfers over RDMA and other cool features, but people are
not using them.</p>
+<h3>Geek Gods</h3>
+<p>From the very start of this year’s conference, it was clear that the
market for CIFS talent was hot. There were a lot of companies hiring.Â
Microsoft’s drive, over the past few years, to deliver and improve upon
the SMB2 suite has caused several storage vendors and startups to invest in
SMB/CIFS and SMB2 engineering. The new SMB2.2 version will only amplify this
effect.</p>
+<p>The problem, though, is that there aren’t enough CIFS geeks to go
around, and those that are available are typically very high-level engineers;
CIFS Geek gods.</p>
+<p>In the NFS market, a company in Silicon Valley can put a sign in the window
that says “NFS Help Wanted”, and a line will form. Employers are
used to being able to hire developers with a recent CS degree who know how to
mess around with NFS, because NFS is taught in Colleges and Universities.Â
That’s what happens with open standards.</p>
+<p>Such is not the case in the CIFS world.</p>
+<p>CIFS isn’t taught anywhere, there is only <a title="Please pardon the
plug, but it really is the only one out there."
href="http://www.ubiqx.org/cifs/";>one book on CIFS protocol internals</a>
available, and until a couple of years ago there weren’t any protocol
specifications at all. <a
href="http://www.hertel.org.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/SuperBug.png";><img
align="right" vspace="5" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-273"
title="AntX"
src="http://www.hertel.org.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/SuperBug-300x144.png";
alt="AntX" width="180" height="86" /></a>As a result, the current pool of CIFS
geeks generally had to come up through the ranks in one of two ways:Â Either
they were already high-level engineers who had a compelling need to enter the
murky swamp, or they were newbies who got thrown in at the deep end and managed
to swimâand avoid getting eaten by the AndX monsters. Chomp.<img
src="file:///home/crh/mnt/MyStuff/presentations/grap
hics/Unsorted/SuperBug.png" alt="" /></p>
+<p>Now that Microsoft has published their official specifications (see <a
title="[MS-CIFS] Protocol Specification"
href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee442092.aspx";
target="_blank">[MS-CIFS]</a>, <a title="[MS-SMB] Protocol Specification
(update to [MS-CIFS])."
href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc246231.aspx";
target="_blank">[MS-SMB]</a>, and <a title="[MS-SMB2] Protocol Specification."
href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc246482.aspx";
target="_blank">[MS-SMB2]</a> as starting points), entry into the CIFS world
should be a little bit easier. The availability of specifications also means
that more companies are trying to implement these protocols in their products,
so more developers with SMB/CIFS/SMB2 know-how are needed.</p>
+<p>That should translate into good news for the few CIFS geeks who don’t
currently have a day job. The only problem is that HR departments have not
yet come to grips with the fact that the available talent is all senior level,
and isn’t all located in California. Recruiters have confirmed that
this is the situation, and that it’s a problem. There are people
available, but their skills are way beyond what managers are expecting and
costs more than they are ready to pay.</p>
+<h3>Whither Samba?</h3>
+<p>It is very difficult to innovate in the SMB/CIFS space. Microsoft’s
market share grants <em>de facto</em> standard status to whatever they do, but
nothing to whatever they don’t. Windows systems, for example, do not
support the so-called “CIFS Unix Extensions” that were designed and
implemented by a loose consortium of third-party vendors that included the
Samba Team. The Unix Extensions survive in obscurity because there are a
handful of products that support them. Many other cool ideas have withered
completely due to lack of support in Windows. You have to be very clever and
very compelling to innovate in this space.</p>
+<p>Samba has a long history of being that kind of clever, but many Samba
innovations are hidden from the user and some, such as improvements made to the
now-outdated Browser Service, are old enough that they are no longer of
interest. Newer innovations, such as Samba/CTDB clusters and Samba’s
Active Directory implementation, are not as important to every day users as
basic file services. Users sometimes forget that Samba’s even there.</p>
+<p>Which is why Samba is more relevant than ever.</p>
+<p>Samba has become part of the infrastructure, like roads or telephone
poles. It needs to be maintained and updated and improved or it really will
get noticed, in the same way that a bridge gets noticed when a car falls
through it. So the Samba Team have been doing a lot of infrastructure work
over the past several years, improving the internal structure of Samba and
setting the groundwork for the next major set of new features.</p>
+<p>Samba 3.6.0, released last August, is a big step forward. It contains
SMB2.0 support. This support is relatively new, even though bits of the code
have been around for quite a while, so this feature is disabled by default.Â
Enable it, test it, and send in bug reports. Community involvement is the
only way to ensure that it gets the extra polish that it needs.</p>
+<p>Implementation of SMB2.1âparticularly BranchCache supportâhas already
started, but the pace is likely to be accelerated now. Following
Microsoft’s presentations at the SDC, SMB2.2 has been added to the Samba
roadmap.</p>
+<p>A large contingent of the Samba Team attended the SDC this year, and
spent a lot of time testing the latest code in the SMB/CIFS/SMB2 Plugfest.Â
The new stuff is on its way.</p>
+
</div><!-- .entry-content -->
+
+
+<p>This article was originally posted to the
+<a href="http://www.hertel.org.uk/blog/?p=253";
+title="2011 SNIA SDC Report: Summary">Hertel Family Blogspace</a>.</p>
+
+<div align="center">Samba - <i>Opening Windows to a Wider World</i></div>
+
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