Re: [LSF/MM TOPIC] linux servers as a storage server - what'smissing?

[Ric Wheeler <rwheeler@redhat.com>]

On 01/19/2012 11:17 AM, Loke, Chetan wrote:
>> From: linux-scsi-owner@vger.kernel.org
> [mailto:linux-scsi-owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of Tom Coughlan
>
>> Yes, Red Hat does. Tony Asleson. libStorageMgmt:
>>
>> http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/libstoragemgmt
>>
>> The current focus is on managing external storage (SMI-S, etc.). This
>> focus can be expanded over time. Contributions welcome.
>>
> Device management(scalability/feature mgmt) -
>
> 1) scalability:
> I may be wrong but storage boxes like symmetrix(and others) support
> large number of LUNs.
> So device management 'scalability' will make linux shine. By scalability
> I mean efficiently managing let's say 32K(?) LUNs.

You can actually have (even more) luns than that for each array in a SAN. From a 
host, you will probably not see all of the luns all of the time, but you 
certainly need to have good support for a large lun address space that will be 
sparsely populated.


>
> 2) feature management:
> As Shyam mentioned in earlier emails - provide an ecosystem similar to
> smart-phones. Let me provide an example(and then
> you guys can correct me by saying this already exists or bits and pieces
> exist):
>
> a) As a kernel developer - export all the features(to the upper layers)
> we can by querying the target.
>
> b) As an app developer - GetLUNFeatures(), could return - {Thin
> Provision, RAID-level, ... ).
>
> c) As a sys-admin - If I right click(for a volume/LUN) on my management
> GUI, I should be able to tell if my volume supports thin-prov, backed by
> DRBD[proxy?] etc.
>
> So once we provide b) from above, tens(if not hundreds) of apps will be
> developed in a short period of time.
> I feel libstoragemgmt is an excellent place to get all of this
> organized.
>
>
> Chetan Loke