[Drbd-dev] [GIT PULL] DRBD for 2.6.32

FUJITA Tomonori fujita.tomonori at lab.ntt.co.jp
Mon Sep 21 15:39:42 CEST 2009


On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:02:32 +0200
Lars Marowsky-Bree <lmb at suse.de> wrote:

> On 2009-09-19T14:14:30, FUJITA Tomonori <fujita.tomonori at lab.ntt.co.jp> wrote:
> 
> > I guess that Christoph is worry about adding another user interface
> > for kinda device management; once we merge this, we can't fix it (for
> > the raid unification).
> 
> Why can't it be fixed?
> 
> Either
> 
> a) there's going to be a transition period during which the "old"
> interface is supported but depreciated and scheduled to be removed (all
> driving the new unified same back-end),

We should avoid removing the existing interface. Once we merge drbd, I
don't think that it's a good idea to remove the drbd user interface.


> or b) there's going to be a new kernel which requires new user-space
> tools sharp.
> 
> In either case, dm/md are affected by this, so a third interface doesn't
> really make much difference. The refactoring needs to happen in the
> back-end anyway, and that actually becomes easier when all concurrent
> implementations are present and can be reworked at the same time.

I don't think so. It's much easier to implement something that
supports fewer user interfaces.


> > BTW, DM already has something like drbd? I thought that there is a
> > talk about that new target at LinuxCon.
> 
> dm-replicator is nowhere near as usable as DRBD, and not upstream yet

I don't think usability at this point is important. The design
matters. dm-replicator is built on the existing framework.

And my question is, if drbd and dm-replicator will provide similar
features, then why do we need both in mainline?


> either. (Further, it's another independent implementation, pursued
> instead of unifying any of the existing ones or helping to merge drbd -
> don't get me started on my thoughts of that.)

Again, dm-replicator is built on the existing framework instead of
adding another 'multiple (virtual) devices' framework into mainline.


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