On Fri, 5 May 2006, Marion Hakanson wrote:
> Interesting discussion. I've often been impressed at how NetApp-like
> the overal ZFS feature-set is (implies that I like NetApp's). Is it
> verboten to compare ZFS to NetApp? I hope not....
Of course not. And if "Thumper" is similar to the rumoured description
published by theregister.com, then it will be widely recognized as a
strong NetApp competitor product and invite direct comparison.
> NetApp has two ways of making snapshots. There is a set of automatic
> snapshots, which are created, rotate and expire on their own (i.e. the
> filer does all of this). Often you'll have a number of hourly, daily,
> weekly, etc. snapshots in this category. These are the ones that users
> can count on seeing when they seek to perform a self-recovery of a
> mistakenly damaged file.
>
> Then you have the ones you create manually, or which are created by
> backup software. The filer itself will never delete these, it's up
> to the external creator to manage them.
>
> This has proven to be a fantastic model for the usage patterns that I have
> experienced (over probably 6+ years of NetApp use), and I would like to
> see something similar available for ZFS.
>
> Personally, I think that having an expiration time (and creation) be
> associated with the snapshot/pool itself is a good thing. What happens
> if one exports said filesystem/pool (with snapshots) to another system,
> if such creation/expiration is handled by some outside utility?
Playing devils advocate and assuming that utility is not a part of zfs
[0]: As long as you can access the "serial numbers"[1] that zfs associates
with a pool and with pool member disks, an external utility could still
maintain the relationship between the snapshot and the pool that it was
created from.
> Hmm, I'm not sure if the NetApp auto-snapshot schedule follows a disk
> volume if it's exported to a different filer. I think it doesn't.
>
[0] it could be in a zfs contributed software repository
[1] really Unique Identifiers
Al Hopper Logical Approach Inc, Plano, TX. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Voice: 972.379.2133 Fax: 972.379.2134 Timezone: US CDT
OpenSolaris.Org Community Advisory Board (CAB) Member - Apr 2005
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