[DRBD-user] URGENT Request for DRBD Developers

Art Age Software artagesw at gmail.com
Fri May 23 20:24:28 CEST 2008

Note: "permalinks" may not be as permanent as we would like,
direct links of old sources may well be a few messages off.


I'm sorry, but you are missing the point. I never said 8.0.12 is
perfect. But it serves a different purpose from 8.2.x and is the
correct choice for an enterprise distro such as CentOS.

The 8.0.x branch is the **stable** branch. It gets bug fixes and
security fixes only, **not** new feature development. It is inherently
more stable than the 8.2 branch.

We choose to run CentOS, not Fedora, for our production systems
specifically because it is an **enterprise distro** and we expect it
to adhere to a release/update policy consistent with an enterprise
distro.

DRBD 8.2.x is where the bleeding edge feature development happens, and
it is much more appropriate for Fedora or maybe for CentOSPlus. But
IMHO, it does not belong in CentOS as the **only** DRBD option.

On production systems, we cannot afford the risk inherent in upgrading
such a mission-critical part of our deployment infrastructure (DRBD)
to a version that is under active feature development. With every new
feature added to DRBD 8.2, there is a higher probability of something
breaking (i.e. regressions or new bugs appearing). This possibility is
minimized in the 8.0.x branch. Clearly, the DRBD developers understand
this or they would not offer two branches.

>>But since currently they are the same protocol and that you can upgrade with yum upgrade to get the newer version without having to do anything more than you do to install 8.2 I am not sure what the problem is.  (There is no more steps required to move to drbd82 that to upgrade drbd to 8.0.12)

This is not a technical issue - it is a policy issue. Yes, technically
an upgrade is possible. But that does not mean that it is the correct
course of action. Those of us maintaining production systems have
strict policies in effect pertaining to upgrades, for the purpose of
maintaining stability and availability of our production systems. By
forcing us to move from 8.0.x to 8.2.x, those policies are violated.
An enterprise distro like CentOS is **not** supposed to make those
types of policy decisions on behalf of its users.

Thanks,

Sam



More information about the drbd-user mailing list