[DRBD-user] Complete decoupling of LINSTOR from DRBD (Q1 2019)

[Robert Altnoeder]

On 11/23/18 11:00 AM, Michael Hierweck wrote:
> Linbit announces the complete decoupling of LINSTOR from DRBD (Q1 2019).
> [...]
> Does this mean Linbit will abandon DRBD?

Not at all, it just means that LINSTOR will be able to run on systems
where DRBD is not installed, and will be able to manage storage devices
that do not use DRBD for replication.
Originally, LINSTOR was designed to manage DRBD storage, and the
Satellite currently tracks (and requires tracking of) the DRBD event
streams. Future versions will still be able to manage DRBD storage, but
could also be used to manage different kinds of storage.

This affects the LINSTOR Satellite module primarily. The LINSTOR
Controller has not been particularly dependent on specific platforms or
on the availability of DRBD from the beginning (in fact, I've run the
Controller on Mac OS X a couple times during development).

> (What technologies might replace or co-exist DBRD
> in an LINSTOR cluster?)

Typically any kind of block storage, the required storage management
drivers are dynamically loadable in LINSTOR (they are plugins, more or
less).
The future storage management will work in multiple layers, e.g. you
could have a DRBD on top of an encrypted, deduplicated ZFS volume by
means of stacking the various storage drivers. Or maybe you'll just run
a non-replicated local LVM logical volume, but still managed by LINSTOR.

br,
Robert