Talk:GPFS

Ceph
How come there is no mention of Ceph as a GPFS competitor? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mazzystr (talk • contribs) 18:56, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

GPFS 3.3
IBM demoed a pre-release of GPFS 3.3 during SuperComputing 2008 (November 2008) with full support of Windows HPC Server 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqimygrrHTw&feature=related —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.165.2.78 (talk) 08:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Advert
Removed the 'Advert' tag. If someone disagrees, please indicate here which statements are problematic. --Dan.tsafrir (talk) 14:44, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Need to Compare Against ZFS?
The article compares GPFS to Google GFS and Hadoop HDFS, but it seems that ZFS might be more similar to GPFS than the latter two, and so a GPFS vs. ZFS comparison could be more appropriate / helpful. --Dan.tsafrir (talk) 14:53, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Not so sure. The only GPFS installation I've seen was on a SAN attached to a supercomputer cluster, where the ability to stripe data across every disk meant that when you asked for a file, you got every disk head fetching a bit of it, then the san bandwidth bringing it to you. Does its a premium alternative to things like HDFS, which has worse remote bandwidth but does work near the data instead. I don't know how ZFS stands up to either use. It may scale, but does it have the bandwidth or the locality? (COI disclaimer, I work on hadoop clustering) SteveLoughran (talk) 21:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

File name length
The info box states »256 UTF-8« as the maximum file name length which is pretty nonsensical. Does this mean »256 bytes in which an UTF-8-encoded name is stored« (making this essentially »256 UTF-8 code units«) or »256 Unicode code points«? The table at Comparison of file systems is even worse, stating »255 UTF-8 codepoints« which (a) deviates from the measure given here and (b) is even more nonsense, as there is no such thing as an »UTF-8 code point«. I wasn't able to find clarification on IBM's web site which seems to be pretty silent on the limits and restrictions of the file system in the general case. Maybe someone is able to clarify this, as how it currently stands it's a useless piece of information (or rather,not information at all). —Johannes Rössel (talk) 12:34, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Shared Disk
The article states (in the very first sentence) that GPFS is a shared-disk network filesystem. While thats certainly the common case for GPFS, I have two gpfs filesystems that have no shared disk. Since at least 3.0, gpfs supports storage local to only one storage node. It even has features for 'failure domains' to be able to replicate around a problem affecting a single node.

However, I'm new to wikipedia and dont' want to edit the main article right away. Whats the best way to update this page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hunterm777 (talk • contribs) 16:17, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

copyvio?
section 3, Information Lifecycle management, is quoted from "Software Defined Storage for Dummies" chapter 6, which is copyright John Wiley & Sons. Maybe this is considered promotional material and therefore fair use? PeterGrecian (talk)

IBM Spectrum Scale
According to this sheet https://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/dc/en/dcj12427usen/DCJ12427USEN.PDF, rebranding to Spectrum Scale was done in 2014 (see also https://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/dc/en/dcw03057usen/DCW03057USEN.PDF, especially "Administration") 138.246.2.242 (talk) 17:25, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Both links deadlink. The commercial product might be rebranded but the underlying technology is still referred to as GPFS. Even the Redbook titled IBM Spectrum Scale (formerly GPFS) has a whopping 2871 references to GPFS. As an IBM customer I see IBM Spectrum Scale as the product implementation based on the GPFS technology.
 * --Z Doc (talk) 11:15, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Posix Compliance
"GPFS supports full Posix filesystem semantics. HDFS and GFS do not support full Posix compliance."

Is there a source for this quote?

RedHat claims GFS is Posix compliant in the first sentence here: https://www.redhat.com/whitepapers/rha/gfs/GFS_INS0032US.pdf ("Red Hat Global File System (GFS) is an open source, POSIX-compliant cluster fi le system and volume manager that executes on Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers attached to a storage area network (SAN).")

Maybe the "full" modifier is the devil in the details?

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Updated to reflect current version and naming
Disclaimer: I work for IBM

I edited the article to reflect the change in name from "GPFS" to "Spectrum Scale". That change officially dates from 2014/2015, so it seemed about time (even though the old name is still widely used). I tried to remain neutral on content other than the name change, but encourage other editors to verify. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Czetie (talk • contribs) 15:08, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Disclaimer: IBM customer
 * Hmmm, I find this change degrading to the information. Spectrum Scale is a product name based on the GPFS technology. If I cross check the documentation by IBM itself, the first thing mentioned in the FAQ is IBM Spectrum Scale™, based on technology from IBM General Parallel File System (hereinafter referred to as IBM Spectrum Scale or GPFS).
 * IMHO this seems to enforce my opinion that IBM Spectrum Scale is the commercial product name based on the technology known as GPFS.
 * Source, current version documentation: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/STXKQY/gpfsclustersfaq.html?cp=STXKQY_5.0.4
 * --Z Doc (talk) 11:06, 28 March 2020 (UTC)


 * (Disclaimer: Work for a GPFS-using company.) My colleagues directly support our GPFS installation. Never a day goes past without some mention of "GPFS" in the office (or nowadays the Slack/Zoom office). I don't think I had ever once even heard the term "Spectrum Scale" until I read it in this article and wondered what it was, until the "Aha! it's just the salesdroid word for GPFS" moment quickly dawned. Feline Hymnic (talk) 11:46, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 28 March 2020

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. I find the arguments in support of the move (GPFS being the common name) more convincing than the sole definite oppose (should use the common name), particularly as GPFS already redirects to the current title. Number  5  7  23:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

IBM Spectrum Scale → GPFS – This filesystem is known in everyday use as 'GPFS', not this obscure name 'IBM Spectrum Scale'. Google searches confirm that 'GPFS' is far more commonly used. Feline Hymnic (talk) 17:31, 28 March 2020 (UTC) —Relisted. – Ammarpad (talk) 18:50, 5 April 2020 (UTC)


 * support (as proposer). See my discussion just above. Additionally: Google search "spectrum scale" filesystem: "about 24,800 results"; "gpfs" filesystem: "about 155,000 results". Feline Hymnic (talk) 18:09, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 23:22, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose - keep the official name as the article's title. GPFS redirects to this page, so anyone searching for GPFS will find what they want. Mikus (talk) 19:09, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Support - Spectrum Scale is a productname, GPFS is how the file system is known. --Z Doc (talk) 15:38, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment bare acronyms can be confusing, how about GPFS filesystem? buidhe 20:36, 18 April 2020 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Note to 'comment' above about possible "GPFS filesystem". The 'FS' part of 'GPFS' is itself "File System". The net result of the expansion would be "General Parallel File System File System". Feline Hymnic (talk) 11:19, 19 April 2020 (UTC)