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Joyent Public Cloud EOL

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Re: Joyent Public Cloud EOL

#261

Post by notacoward »

cbsmith wrote: post #251
Annatar wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you compare Sun to their competitors at the time: IBM, DEC, SGI, HP, and even Microsoft. Sun was way ahead on distributed systems." Careful now, you're on thin ice: Sun Microsystems might have been a pioneer in distributed cloud computing, but nobody did it better than SGI: once they had the NUMALink technology from CRAY, they invented cluster routing in hardware which would linearly scale with added router modul…

That's not the distributed computing that the OP was referring to. Explicit reference was made to WAN-style networking that makes the crossbar switch effectively seem like motherboard traces.

Explicit reference was also made to NFS, which has nothing to do with WAN-style networking. The local Sun mafia are trying really hard to claim credit for distributed computing at all scales, and there's nothing off-topic about addressing one part.

Re: Joyent Public Cloud EOL

#262

Post by notacoward »

zzzcpan wrote: post #212
mpweiher wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add to the "ignored the internet" bit: This is the company that had "the dot in .com" as its marketing slogan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njnNVV5QNaA https://slashdot.org/story/00/04/20/1542217/sun-no-longer-th...

Ignored the internet in terms of distributed systems, which I assumed was obvious from the wording. Look at that 1994 paper, none of the things in the paper show any background to build a distributed key-value storage or really anything for the cloud. I'm not sure why people are trying to claim otherwise. Even ZFS from a decade later reflects both a complete lack of experience in distributed systems and ignorance tow…

I believe ZFS represented a missed opportunity by spending all that effort on a local filesystem instead of trying to do something interesting in the distributed space. I even said so at the time, since I was working on distributed filesystems at the time, but that's just a strategic issue (and one that's quite arguable). It's not evidence of ignorance or lack of experience.

Re: Joyent Public Cloud EOL

#263

Post by notacoward »

Annatar wrote: post #252
zzzcpan wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they didn't seem to know any of the simple and nice ideas from distributed systems to solve pain points of managing space, since adding, removing nodes, sharding/partitioning is something you have to figure out pretty much from the start.

Distributed systems and write arbitration on the same file are still terra incognita. This has never been solved because no one, and I really mean literally no one has been able to solve write arbitration to the same file or even the same block from multiple sources at the same time yet. Especially not in a generic way. Which node's update is the correct one in that instance? There is an entire world of computer scie…

> Distributed systems and write arbitration on the same file are still terra incognita.

That's far too aggressive a response for someone who's being sloppy with terminology themselves. "Distributed" covers many different scales. You also use "clustering filesystem" as though it's a synonym, which it very much is not. Among those who have actually built both, like me, distributed and cluster filesystems are very different things. It's fine if you think "true" distributed systems means global scale, but if you're not even explicit (let alone correct) about it you should hardly be condemning others for using definitions closer to general usage. And you definitely shouldn't be pretending to read people's minds with claims about what they "gave no thought" to or "have no idea" about.

P.S. Since I can't reply to your comment below which was quite rightly flagged into oblivion, no, I didn't have anything to do with GFS.

Re: Joyent Public Cloud EOL

#264

Post by Annatar »

zzzcpan wrote: post #256
Annatar wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distributed systems and write arbitration on the same file are still terra incognita. This has never been solved because no one, and I really mean literally no one has been able to solve write arbitration to the same file or even the same block from multiple sources at the same time yet. Especially not in a generic way. Which node's update is the correct one in that instance? There is an entire world of computer scie…

Flagged your comment for this. You should at least glance over my comment history on distributed computing before attacking me on things you don't understand.

I do not care who you are. Your comments on this thread made it crystal clear that you are not familiar with the subject matter: for you distributed has a very narrow meaning of a sharded key-value store, you've succeeded in making that clear. "Cloud", except that's not it.

And whether you "flagged" my comment or not, that's irrelevant to me.

Re: Joyent Public Cloud EOL

#265

Post by Annatar »

notacoward wrote: post #263
Annatar wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distributed systems and write arbitration on the same file are still terra incognita. This has never been solved because no one, and I really mean literally no one has been able to solve write arbitration to the same file or even the same block from multiple sources at the same time yet. Especially not in a generic way. Which node's update is the correct one in that instance? There is an entire world of computer scie…

> Distributed systems and write arbitration on the same file are still terra incognita. That's far too aggressive a response for someone who's being sloppy with terminology themselves. "Distributed" covers many different scales. You also use "clustering filesystem" as though it's a synonym, which it very much is not. Among those who have actually built both, like me, distributed and cluster filesystems are very diffe…

Aggressive? Precise would be more like it.

Re: Joyent Public Cloud EOL

#266

Post by Annatar »

zzzcpan wrote: post #255
Annatar wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter (and I don't care) what they referred to, only the end result counts: SGI designed and implemented cloud computing in hardware. Color me impressed. Haven't seen anyone successfully do it since, hardware- or software-wise (and everyone is sure as hell trying!)

Cloud computing in hardware is oxymoron.

SGI did in hardware what people are now trying to hack together with shoddy software implementations which can't survive an outage nor protect against data corruption.

Re: Joyent Public Cloud EOL

#267

Post by Annatar »

notacoward wrote: post #263
Annatar wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distributed systems and write arbitration on the same file are still terra incognita. This has never been solved because no one, and I really mean literally no one has been able to solve write arbitration to the same file or even the same block from multiple sources at the same time yet. Especially not in a generic way. Which node's update is the correct one in that instance? There is an entire world of computer scie…

> Distributed systems and write arbitration on the same file are still terra incognita. That's far too aggressive a response for someone who's being sloppy with terminology themselves. "Distributed" covers many different scales. You also use "clustering filesystem" as though it's a synonym, which it very much is not. Among those who have actually built both, like me, distributed and cluster filesystems are very diffe…

"Red Hat (2009-present): cloud filesystem"

Does that mean you are the person ready to take responsibility for GFS and GFS2 being a steaming pile of bug-ridden excrement?

Re: Joyent Public Cloud EOL

#268

Post by zzzcpan »

Annatar wrote: post #264
zzzcpan wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flagged your comment for this. You should at least glance over my comment history on distributed computing before attacking me on things you don't understand.

I do not care who you are. Your comments on this thread made it crystal clear that you are not familiar with the subject matter: for you distributed has a very narrow meaning of a sharded key-value store, you've succeeded in making that clear. "Cloud", except that's not it. And whether you "flagged" my comment or not, that's irrelevant to me.

It doesn't have that meaning to me. But in the context of a failed cloud company of Sun refugees the only experience in distributed systems that matters is the experience Sun refugees didn't and couldn't have. For some reason you are claiming absolutely irrelevant things to any of that. And, of course, resorting to personal attacks.

Re: Joyent Public Cloud EOL

#269

Post by zzzcpan »

notacoward wrote: post #262
zzzcpan wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignored the internet in terms of distributed systems, which I assumed was obvious from the wording. Look at that 1994 paper, none of the things in the paper show any background to build a distributed key-value storage or really anything for the cloud. I'm not sure why people are trying to claim otherwise. Even ZFS from a decade later reflects both a complete lack of experience in distributed systems and ignorance tow…

I believe ZFS represented a missed opportunity by spending all that effort on a local filesystem instead of trying to do something interesting in the distributed space. I even said so at the time, since I was working on distributed filesystems at the time, but that's just a strategic issue (and one that's quite arguable). It's not evidence of ignorance or lack of experience.

Well, on that part I was referring more specifically to the vdev mess and raidz, how you cannot just add a disk to the file system. Which is pretty silly, considering that at the time there were plenty of ideas how to do it much better, although not for disks, but for nodes in distributed systems. But apparently no one on ZFS team had any idea about any of it.

Re: Joyent Public Cloud EOL

#270

Post by notacoward »

zzzcpan wrote: post #269
notacoward wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe ZFS represented a missed opportunity by spending all that effort on a local filesystem instead of trying to do something interesting in the distributed space. I even said so at the time, since I was working on distributed filesystems at the time, but that's just a strategic issue (and one that's quite arguable). It's not evidence of ignorance or lack of experience.

Well, on that part I was referring more specifically to the vdev mess and raidz, how you cannot just add a disk to the file system. Which is pretty silly, considering that at the time there were plenty of ideas how to do it much better, although not for disks, but for nodes in distributed systems. But apparently no one on ZFS team had any idea about any of it.

That was a pretty common pattern at Sun. Engineers there did a lot of great work, no denying it. Like many other projects, ZFS solved some pretty difficult and important problems while ignoring others. Which ones get talked about ad nauseam? We all make mistakes, of course, but some of those ignored problems were well known at the time to be worth solving. Did those self-professed "complete engineers" learn anything from those times they missed the target? The fact that Sun doesn't exist any more suggests an answer.
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