[HCoop-Discuss] The future of HCoop

[Derrick Brashear]

> As for AFS, the benefits may outweigh the costs if we use it for home directories only.  Using it for databases is, as has been discussed on lists previously, probably redundant and definitely burdensome resource-wise.
>
> As for other details, count my board vote for not maintaining any server hardware.  That means virtualization.  My instinct is for kernel virtualization instead of openvps-style virtualization.  And I think we need to make the move soon, like within the next month.
>
> I like domtool quite a lot and I hope that everyone will join me in encouraging adamc to help continue developing and maintaining it.
>
> So, to sum up (and to facilitate replies) I think the board should vote to:
> - seek out a dedicated server where we can virtualize our new setup
> - vote to move very soon
> - scale back AFS to home directories only

I think this is a reasonable proposal. I haven't kept my own mailbox
in AFS for years: specialized software intended for email exists (and
I was involved in the maintenance and development of one such piece,
Cyrus, for quite some time). In a virtualized universe, virtual
appliances can be used to, for instance, provide mail service, with
direct support for Kerberos authentication in the appliance, as well
as to provide webmail, reducing the support burden, at least if you're
moving toward virtualization anyway.

Derrick