[nycbug-talk] AFS (Andrew File System) Article published on Daemon News

[Isaac Levy]

Hi All,

A humble question, but with regard to AFS/Coda 'where's the beef'?

On May 11, 2006, at 2:13 PM, Mikel King wrote:

>
> AFS: network filesystem beyond NFS weaknesses (Dreyfus, Emmanuel)  
> 200605
>
> This interview of Ty Sarna about AFS (Andrew File System) by Emmanuel
> Dreyfus, covers a lot of ground. This rare glimpse, explains what you
> need to do to properly deploy AFS in most environments. You will
> discover the advantages of deploying AFS in lieu of NFS or CIFS
> (Samba) and it is actually an enjoyable read.
>
> http://ezine.daemonnews.org/200605/afs.html

I started going down the Coda/OpenAFS path a few months ago for a  
project, and wound up retreating.  The features were all extremely  
compelling, as was the age (assumed software maturity) of the  
filesystem, but alas- I found both Coda and AFS to be extremely  
poorly implemented.  For something as important as a filesystem, in  
my particular application/context, both AFS/Coda were unacceptably  
sloppy to work with- they felt like a houseplant occasionally tended  
by graduate students at various universities...

With that, the concepts and features of AFS/Coda are all still very  
intriguing, as they solve problems I've traditionally handled on  
higher application levels combining network transacions and database  
repication in various forms- i.e. I *want* it to work.
However, all that seems to really be great about AFS/Coda are glowing  
conceptual advertisements from exited academics, much like the  
interview posted here.

Has anyone on this list had good experiences with Coda/AFS?
Is anyone running it in some sort of production-grade enviornment?
Does anyone have anything except horror stories from the big  
financial companies that have deployed it around town for years?

Of course I'm not in any way intending this email to be inflammatory,  
but it's not just me, other trusted colleagues on various scales  
report sub-par experiences with AFS/Coda.

Best,
.ike