[nycbug-talk] Fwd: Adaptec AAC raid support

[G. Rosamond]

This is a thread well worth following. . .

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Theo de Raadt <deraadt at cvs.openbsd.org>
> Date: March 18, 2005 6:01:00 PM EST
> To: "Richardson, Doug" <doug_richardson at adaptec.com>
> Cc: misc at openbsd.org
> Subject: Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
>
>> I am surprised at your e-mail, and am very disappointed at your
>> demeanor....
>
> I myself am rather surprised as well, since this has been a FOUR MONTH
> conversation with Adaptec..
>
>> We here at Adaptec are doing all we can to provide you as much
>> documentation as we possibly can in the timeframe that makes the most
>> sense for both of us....and we had provided you documentation before 
>> on
>> our driver,
>
> I am unaware of any other Adaptec RAID documentation having been 
> provided
> to OpenBSD.
>
>> but what you are seeking now is more source information
>> regarding our GUI management, etc...
>
> We are not asking for "source".  We are asking for information as to
> how to communicate with the controller so that it can perform the job
> that it is advertised to perform.  Your controllers are NOT performing
> at the moment because you do not let vendors communicate with the RAID
> management components.
>
>> I can understand you seeking this, as you as well as many other 
>> flavors
>> of Linux/Unix are looking for the same thing...and though we would 
>> like
>> to support "all" of the various flavors of these new operating 
>> systems,
>> we can't do so in an economic fashion, as support for "all" of these
>> varying flavors is just not possible...
>
> We are not asking for support.  We are asking for documentation.
>
> Back when we asked for documentation for the Adaptec SCSI products,
> Adaptec also translated that to mean "support".  We did not want
> support!  Then Adaptec gave us documentation.
>
> Are you telling customers that unless they run an Adaptec approved
> operating system ("supported") that they should NOT buy Adaptec RAID
> products?
>
> Are you willing to start accepting returns for Adaptec RAID products
> that customers have... which are not performing the tasks that RAID
> controllers are expected to perform?
>
>> But, help is on the way....
>>
>> We are coming out with an entire new rev of our firmware with the
>> upcoming SAS/SATA-2 release in the July timeframe, and our plan is to
>> provide a Software Development Kit (SDK), which will be generic in
>> nature, and will have the documentation in hand that will help you to 
>> do
>> the work on your side to continue to expand the support for Adaptec
>> products in your OpenBSD OS....
>
> And this scares us.  A new firmware?  That must be loaded onto a card,
> for RAID management to work?  And what of all the cards that are out
> there now?
>
> From my viewpoint, the goal here is to make it harder to run on
> operating systems other that Windows.
>
> Why don't you just give us the Adaptec RAID management firmware
> documentation in some form before we just either
>
> 	1) Reverse engineer it
>
> or
>
> 	2) Entirely cease supporting Adaptec RAID controllers.
>
> There are other choices on the market.
>
>> Until then, you will need to be patient, as we are getting closer, but
>> not fully there....
>
> I heard a timeline of releasing such an SDK in July.  If that is the
> case, the earliest we would be able to include RAID management support
> is likely May 2006 (misc readers: because the SDK would arrive after
> our hackathon).
>
> Should we tell everyone who is running Adaptec RAID to choose other
> products until such time?
>
> Should we tell the people (who we both know) running with over a 
> million
> dollars worth of Adaptec RAID cards to ... simply trust their RAID 
> arrays
> will not lose a drive?
>
> What is your message for those large customers who believed they were
> buying a product that would give them greater uptime?
>
>