Coda File System

Re: Using Coda in a "Distributed Office"

From: <u-codalist-f7q1_at_aetey.se>
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:53:45 +0100
Hello Francesco,

On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 01:52:53PM +0100, Francesco wrote:
> We would like to have file distributed and replicated on each computer of
> the office without using a central file server.
> So we are thinking about making each office's computer at the same time a
> server and a client of a coda file system. In this way data should be
> replicated in all the office computers and if a computer is damaged we can
> change it with a new one (configured correctly) and it will take all the
> data from the Coda file system and became a new server and client of it.

I am sorry to tell you, but I have a feeling that you are thinking in a
wrong direction. Coda is not a tool to replicate files between numerous
storage nodes, it is a system designed with quite different premises
and goals in mind.

> Me and another couple of guys are the ones that should take care of
> that "distributed office" and, before we start to play with Coda, we would
> like to know if, in your opinion, what we would like to do is possible  with
> Coda.

I doubt that there is any existing tool which will work well for the
approach you are thinking of. You might be better off going a more
traditional way, unless you have unlimited resources and want to develop
something that nobody yet did.

I do not want to discourage your creative thinking but let you
be aware that distributing storage across unreliable hosts is far
from trivial.

Coda is not doing this - it builds instead on a limited set of
carefully-administered-together servers and an unlimited set of freely
(un)administered clients (like workstations).

Regards and good luck with your project,
Rune
Received on 2010-11-26 10:54:38