Re: Distributed File Systems. Which is best?

[Jason White <jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>]

pac@fortuitous.com writes:
 > > > 
 > > > Why not consider
 > > > c. OpenAFS (http://www.openafs.org/) which I have never used, but
 > > > apparently it works (or at least used to work/has been rumored to
 > > > work) with XFS as the underlying file system on the AFS partitions.
 > 
 >   I'll consider it. But that still leaves us where we started. 
 > Has anyone Used any of these, and why are there so many projects
 > working independently of each other, and which is the most reliable?

AFS has a strong reputation for reliability, and it is
also the oldest of the systems mentioned, having been used widely in
university and corporate settings for years. However I am not
acquainted with its reliability or performance under XFS.

As to why there are so many projects in this area, I suspect a number
of reasons, including different design goals, some projects being
newer than others (the desire for a "fresh start" with a different
approach to the design), etc.