Less known Solaris Features: CacheFS - Part 7: The future of CacheFS
CacheFS is one of this hidden gems in Solaris, it´s even that hidden, that it´s in sustaining mode since 1999. That means, that only bugfixes are made for this features but no new features found their way into this component since that day. In the recent days there was some discussion about the declaration of the End-of-Feature status for CacheFS which will lead to the announcement of the removal of CacheFS. After a few days of discussion the ARC decided in favour of the removal.
There are several problems with CacheFS (for example it´s incompatibility with NFSv4) that mandates a major redesign of CacheFS, but CacheFS solves customer problems today. Thus i´m strongly disagree with the idea of removing a part of Solaris as long there is no equivalent feature (in this case: as long there isn´t a new boot-persistent caching for NFS available in Solaris).
As i want to place a RFE to add an equivalent feature it would be very helpful to get some information from you:
- Do you already use CacheFS?
- In the case you use CacheFS at the moment ...
- Is a removal of CacheFS a problem for you?
- Would the removal hurt the deployment of Solaris at your site
- Would you use an equivalent feature?
- In the case you didn´t used CacheFS so far ...
- Is CacheFS a desirable feature for you after reading the tutorial?
- Is CacheFS a feature that would help the deployment and adoption of Solaris at your site?