raid framework from OpenBSD

[Scott Long]

Joao Barros wrote:
> On 9/14/05, Scott Long <scottl at samsco.org> wrote:
> 
>>Massimo wrote:
>>
>>>I would like to know what do you think about new OpenBSD raid framework
>>>management.
>>>http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=112630095818062
>>>
>>>Doesn't it seems good stuff which is good for consideration?
>>>
>>>Regards.
>>
>>Creating a unified management tool for multiple RAID architectures has
>>been a Holy Grail for at least 10 years, if not longer.  It's
>>deceptively hard, though.  While it sounds straight-forward and is
>>relatively easy to do for 1 or 2 architectures, the vast differences in
>>how different architectures work makes it quickly turn into a huge mess.
>>This is especially true when it comes to topology discovery and
>>management and asynchronous event notification.  Often times the only
>>course is to degrade to a very simple, lowest common denominator
>>interface, which then starts to limit the usefulness of the tool.  I've
>>been involved in several professional projects in exactly this area, and
>>it simply is very, very hard to do well. The OpenBSD work looks
>>interesting, but unless they can demostrate useful operation on more
>>than 1 or 2 architectures, it's not terribly impressive.  That's not to
>>say that it can't be done and be a success, but the amount of required
>>effort should not be underestimated. It's relatively easy to come up
>>with a framework and implement one architecture module in it, then tell
>>everyone else to simply add more modules.
>>
>>Also, it's not clear from the email whether the tool has to be manually
>>told to rescan and look for changes in the state of the array (not just
>>SES/SAFTE changes of the component drives).  Displaying status on demand
>>is fine, but what admin sits in front of their terminal and refreshes
>>their monitoring apps every 5 seconds?  The key is to have a an event
>>notification pipeline that can collect events in near real time, filter
>>them in a configurable way, and send out email/pager alerts when
>>appropriate.  Also, what does this mean for a datacenter full of
>>machines that need to be monitored?  Does a remote terminal session need
>>to be opened on each one in order for monitoring to work?
>>
>>But, even if this particular work degrades into only being a tool for
>>AMI (I assume they mean MegaRAID) controllers, it's still useful and I
>>give them credit for doing it.
> 
> 
> Having an amr I'm most interested in this, as I guess more people are.
> Given that there is "customer" interest, my question is: is there
> interest from you in this, having it imported to FreeBSD?
> I've looked at the code and I wouldn't mind starting to work on this.
> 
> --
> Joao Barros

Give it a try if you're interested.

Scott