Sage Weil, Ceph Principal Architect at Red Hat discusses open source versus open standards and why open source software will be the key driver in the next revolution of storage.

1. OPEN SOURCE VS OPEN STANDARDS
SAGE WEIL, Ceph Principal Architect

2. STANDARDS ARE IMPORTANT
Standards like these allow interoperability
and vendor-neutrality into today's data center
Fibre Channel, iSCSI
NFS, SMB

3. STANDARDS ARE IMPORTANT
Standards like these allow interoperability
and vendor-neutrality into today's data center
Fibre Channel, iSCSI
NFS, SMB
BIG WIN
FOR USERS

4. STANDARDS ARE IMPORTANT
Standards like these allow interoperability
and vendor-neutrality into today's data center
Fibre Channel, iSCSI
NFS, SMB
BIG WIN
FOR USERS
BIG WIN
FOR APPLIANCE
VENDORS

5. STANDARDS ARE IMPORTANT
Standards like these allow interoperability
and vendor-neutrality into today's data center
Fibre Channel, iSCSI
NFS, SMB
BIG WIN
FOR USERS
BIG WIN
FOR APPLIANCE
VENDORS
BIG WIN FOR
OPEN SOURCE

6. STANDARDS BODIES
Should we engage directly in standards bodies?
And how should we engage?
There are many organizations to choose from.
IETF, SNIA, INCITS (T10, T11, etc.)

7. BIG PICTURE
What architectures will we be using in 5-10 years?
Which ones are the most successful today?

8. BIG PICTURE
What architectures will we be using in 5-10 years?
Which ones are the most successful today?
Google

9. BIG PICTURE
What architectures will we be using in 5-10 years?
Which ones are the most successful today?
Google Amazon Web
Services

10. BIG PICTURE
What architectures will we be using in 5-10 years?
Which ones are the most successful today?
Google Amazon Web
Services
Can we make a similar leap with a standards-based approach?

11. STANDARDS VERSUS APIs
Software is written to APIs, not protocols.

12. STANDARDS VERSUS APIs
Software is written to APIs, not protocols.

13. STANDARDS VERSUS APIs
Software is written to APIs, not protocols.

14. QEMU/KVM BLOCK DEVICES
Open source virtual block devices can be built with
less friction than standards-based interfaces.
New problems can be solved more efficiently
and the API can be evolved over time.

15. QEMU/KVM BLOCK DEVICES
Open source virtual block devices can be built with
less friction than standards-based interfaces.
New problems can be solved more efficiently
and the API can be evolved over time.

16. STANDARDS CAN RESTRICT US
The use of standard protocols often makes:
Simple problems
harder for
developers to solve.
Solutions slower
and more expensive.

17. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
Host-attached drive with SCSI.
DEVICE
VOLATILE CACHE (RAM)
DURABLE STORE (PLATTER)
LINK

18. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
Host-attached drive with SCSI.
DEVICE
VOLATILE CACHE (RAM)
DURABLE STORE (PLATTER)
LINK
WRITE

19. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
Host-attached drive with SCSI.
DEVICE
VOLATILE CACHE (RAM)
DURABLE STORE (PLATTER)
LINK
WRITE

20. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
Host-attached drive with SCSI.
DEVICE
VOLATILE CACHE (RAM)
DURABLE STORE (PLATTER)
LINK
WRITE

21. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
Host-attached drive with SCSI.
DEVICE
VOLATILE CACHE (RAM)
DURABLE STORE (PLATTER)
LINK
FLUSH

22. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
Network-attached drive with iSCSI or FC.
DEVICE
VOLATILE CACHE (RAM)
DURABLE STORE (PLATTER)
MULTIPATH LINKS

23. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
Network-attached drive with iSCSI or FC.
DEVICE
VOLATILE CACHE (RAM)
DURABLE STORE (PLATTER)
MULTIPATH LINKS
WRITE

24. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
Network-attached drive with iSCSI or FC.
DEVICE
VOLATILE CACHE (RAM)
DURABLE STORE (PLATTER)
MULTIPATH LINKS
WRITE

25. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
Network-attached drive with iSCSI or FC.
DEVICE
VOLATILE CACHE (RAM)
DURABLE STORE (PLATTER)
MULTIPATH LINKS
FLUSH

26. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
The real world (where failures happen).
LINK LINK
NON-VOLATILE CACHENON-VOLATILE CACHE

27. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
The real world (where failures happen).
LINK LINK
NON-VOLATILE CACHENON-VOLATILE CACHE
WRITE

28. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
The real world (where failures happen).
LINK LINK
NON-VOLATILE CACHENON-VOLATILE CACHE
WRITE

29. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
The real world (where failures happen).
LINK LINK
NON-VOLATILE CACHENON-VOLATILE CACHE

30. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
The real world (where failures happen).
LINK LINK
NON-VOLATILE CACHEVOLATILE CACHE

31. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
The real world (where failures happen).
LINK
NON-VOLATILE CACHE

32. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
The real world (where failures happen).
LINK
NON-VOLATILE CACHE

33. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
The real world (where reliable things are expensive).
LINK LINK
NON-VOLATILE CACHENON-VOLATILE CACHE

34. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
A fantasy world.
LINK LINK
VOLATILE CACHEVOLATILE CACHE

35. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
A fantasy world.
LINK LINK
VOLATILE CACHEVOLATILE CACHE
WRITE

36. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
A fantasy world.
LINK LINK
VOLATILE CACHEVOLATILE CACHE
WRITE

37. EXAMPLE 1: SCSI
A fantasy world.
LINK LINK
VOLATILE CACHEVOLATILE CACHE

38. EXAMPLE 2: NFS
How to scale out file service.

39. EXAMPLE 2: NFS
How NOT to scale out file service.

40. EXAMPLE 3: PANFS
A modern proprietary distributed file system
● Sane client/cluster protocol
● Cache coherency
● Scale-out data and metadata
● Innovative hardware model

41. EXAMPLE 3: PANFS
PanFS's Linux kernel client was impractical to maintain.
● It's hard to maintain a closed source client
out of tree.
● It's hard to upstream an open source
client without an open source server.

42. EXAMPLE 3: PANFS
PanFS's Linux kernel client was impractical to maintain.
● It's hard to maintain a closed source client
out of tree.
● It's hard to upstream an open source
client without an open source server.
OPEN SOURCE ARCHITECTURES AVOID THIS PROBLEM.

43. OPEN SOURCE IS AN ADVANTAGE
Closed source vendors need these standards, but
they can slow (or even prevent) innovation—be
careful.
For open platforms, clients can be freely
integrated, tested, and deploy without friction, and
still provide interoperability and vendor neutrality.

44. OPEN SOURCE IS AN OPPORTUNITY
Open source architectures can develop at a
faster pace due to lower ecosystem friction.
We should focus on APIs instead of protocol
standards, and how they should evolve for
future environments.
When open source dominates the
environment, traditional vendors can play by
our rules: running code, open source
software, open collaboration.

45. THANK YOU