NFS: How far we’ve come

About six years ago, at one of the early meetings of the Storage Networking Industry Association, just before the cocktail break, it was time for Q&A from the floor. We were all very much in learning mode when it came to storage-area networks in those days, and the vendors were in just about every sense technology-driven. As I recall, there were lots of super ideas from some companies that are no longer with us, and likely some less ambitious concepts from several companies that are.

About six years ago, at one of the early meetings of the Storage Networking Industry Association, just before the cocktail break, it was time for Q&A from the floor.  We were all very much in learning mode when it came to storage-area networks in those days, and the vendors were in just about every sense technology-driven.  As I recall, there were lots of super ideas from some companies that are no longer with us, and likely some less ambitious concepts from several companies that are.

I am sure there is a moral there, somewhere.

There were a few users at the conference. I recall that they were remarkable for their single-mindedness when it came to one particular facet of networked storage.  Several (both?) of them made one concept resoundingly clear:  “Whatever you do, no more file systems!”

I’ll leave it to you to decide how well we listened.  At least the user is blind to all the changes that SAN virtualization has brought about and still can take advantage of them.

One file system, Network File System (NFS), has been with us almost since the days when computers ran on coal.  It was originally designed by Sun for its workstations, enabling them to address files stored not only on their own systems but also on distributed workstations and servers.  Sun’s major competitor in those days was a company called Apollo Computer, which offered its own Remote File System (RFS) for its devices.  For the benefit of those among you who are somewhat historically challenged, Sun won.

NFS continues to roll on, and is now a standard when it comes to file servers.  The NFS of today is a far cry from what it was back in the 1980s, however.  It has been the beneficiary of a long and relatively peaceful evolution that goes on to this day.  This fall NFS-ers will meet again to further its development.  Expect to see in attendance end users, vendors and IT experts running large corporations. 

What is particularly interesting now however, is that this gathering is developing into something of a non-partisan affair. 

Actually, “multi-partisan” may be a better way to put it, for there is a clear list of interested parties that see NFS as critical to their continued development.  In addition to the usual suspect, Sun, other companies sponsoring the event include Network Appliance, Hummingbird and EMC. 

One major area of interest will be the use of NFS in mission-critical environments.  This has been spurred by the announcement of NFS over RDMA-enabled networks featuring a new protocol jointly developed by Sun and Network Appliance for fast file access over 10G bit/sec connections.   Also, NFS Version 4, the new Internet standard file access protocol, has begun to ship, so expect to see deployment and migration issues on the agenda.

The event also features keynote speakers, round table discussions, panel sessions and half-day technical tutorials.  Who knows, maybe even Anne Skamarock – woman of mystery and one of the early NFS engineers at Sun – may put in an appearance.

The NFS Industry Conference is scheduled for September 22-24, in Santa Clara.  For more information and registration, please see http://www.nfsconf.com