Never Trust Anyone Over 3.3

Probably everybody who cares already knows that GlusterFS 3.3 has been released. I find it amusing that quorum enforcement is listed as one of the marquee features, since it’s really such a trivial bit of code compared to the other features on the list, or to internal but significant changes such as the new GFID-based back end, but I guess it’s importance to users rather than effort that define the list. I think it’s also worth mentioning that the release includes a ton of minor fixes that came from running static analysis, and tweaks from the performance team, and other things that are individually small but add up to some pretty major improvements. Maybe some time soon I’ll run some benchmarks of 3.2 vs. 3.3 to show just how dramatic the differences can be. That’s not what I’m here to talk about, though. Now that 3.3 is out the door, a lot of deferred changes have started moving through the queue. Here are some examples of things that are well on their way to becoming part of 3.4, and that I might have mentioned here or in talking to people.

The other HekaFS features are separately getting a bit unstuck. Kaleb is charging ahead with essential infrastructure for the namespace and ID isolation. Edward is cleaning up the at-rest encryption code for submission. So, what am I going to be doing? I have a few more tweaks in mind around replication and distribution (including those I’m maintaining in my own GitHub trees), but mostly I expect to be working on the infamous …and a pony replication. In my not-humble-at-all opinion, that’s the one feature that will really put some distance between GlusterFS and the also-rans. It’s still the #1 idea for making people’s eyes light up, both in public presentations (come see me at Red Hat Summit!) and in private conversations with customers who have petabytes already . . . and that’s before you even consider its applicability to migrating data into or out of public clouds. After nearly three years of being a good little boy and working on stuff that honestly didn’t interest me nearly as much because the need was more immediate, it looks like I’ll finally be free – encouraged, even – to dive into the project I really came here to do. Expect more here as I work out various details over the coming weeks.