bulk volume creation and other volume management enhancements

[tmart]

Through the GUI and CLI, it would be helpful to be able to batch volume creations of a similar fstype or base type. For example, if it takes 5 minutes of wall time to create a Windows volume but 4.5 minutes is starting & stopping the Windows filer and only 30 seconds to actually create the volume, then it would be handy to be able to tell the same filer to go ahead and create multiple volumes during one filer component provisioning lifetime. Similarly of course for *IX volumes even though it doesn't take as long to start & stop that filer.

I don't think that there would be any need to have the mkfs/format run in parallel on the same filer. If you could simply remove the multiplier effect from filer startup of volume creation by batch fs creation, that would be a great improvement in workflow.

I do understand that there is an issue with more than four (4) Windows volumes being mounted in AppLogic. Perhaps this isn't an issue here because you only need to mount one at a time (plus the boot volume)?

Thinner provisioning of the filers would help, but I think there are diminishing returns there. The real time saver would be to allow the filer to create more than one fs during its lifetime.

Also, it would be useful to have access to the --prefill, etc. options from the GUI.

It would also be dandy to see "vol copy" implemented in the GUI.

Another idea, perhaps of limited use, might be to somehow allow the CLI to operate over a CSV file or something similar... for example: if we have 50-100 volumes to create, we could specify name, size, fstype, options (eg. prefill) in a N-delimited file and pump that into the CLI somehow to batch process. But I guess this could be automated using expect or macros against the CLI, eh?

[PeterNic]

Tim,

Thanks - great ideas! Another interesting approach would be to be able to dynamically add and remove volumes -- and actually keep a handful of assorted filer running. I'll have your post brought on our next product feature review meeting.

A few things that can help right away:
- you can run multiple "vol create" commands in parallel -- if done through the shell, just open a few shells (but see below)
- you can script anything in the AppLogic shell through your favorite script language -- either use the rmacros and script from your client machine, or, sometimes better, provision an instance of a VDS (Linux or Windows, your choice), and then script away -- from bash, to DOS batch file, to perl, to VBS (OK, maybe not, but not because it is not possible). We'll look into making macros/scripting easier (or at least more obvious); if adding to the 3t Shell -- how do we choose -- add yet another script language, use someone's favorite but not someone else's...
- combine the above -- e.g., from your linux environment, using rmacros, run a few "vol create" commands with async wait; once the filers disappear from the app list, all is done (clumsy but quick).

Thin provisioning on the filers -- and, in fact, in any appliance -- can be quite cool, too.

Thanks again for the great suggestions,
-- Peter