[HCoop-Discuss] Reorganizing, people-wise and tech-wise

[François-Denis Gonthier]

(This message was originally sent with the wrong address, pardon to the
moderator)

> 
> They have a single fileserver which store all the data and you can
> simple log into any of the diskless servers and find the same
> environment. These servers just provide CPU power and the filesystem
> server provides the storage.
> 
> You could load balance, do cloud computing (like Google App Engine or
> so), and you don't have a single point of failure, so if one server
> goes down (except the fileserver), the members can simply use one of
> the others. Moreover, new services don't have to be distributed to
> the server (like http, smtp, imap or pop), because they operate on
> the same set of data, this saves a lot of administration work and is
> more flexible. You could simply PnP new servers.

This must work wonders if with several servers in the same data
center.  I'm less sure how it would work for a distributed system that
spans the globe.  Before you cite some example of distributed FS setup,
make sure you also say how a cooperative organization with no paid
staff can manage it.

I'm against switching to yet another file system.  One of the reason
Adam cited is that it limits the number of people able to do
administration.  That means that unless you have a contract for life
with HCOOP, we may end up in the same situation in a few years if
you decide to move on to something else.