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HP releases 64-bit Unix file system for Linux open sourcing

By Jacqueline Emigh, BetaNews

June 23, 2008, 12:41 PM

In a move that could help boost the scalability of Linux for grids and other advanced 64-bit multiprocessor applications, HP has release its Tru64 Unix Advanced File System (AdvFS) source code to the open source community.

Originally limited mainly to 32-bit workgroup applications, Linux has been gaining ground on 64-bit platforms vs. Unix over the past few years, especially since the release of 64-bit processors from Intel and AMD.

Hewlett-Packard, once a major player in Unix, has been paying considerable attention to both Linux and Microsoft Windows in recent years.

But on the Unix side, HP still produces both HP-UX and Tru64, an operating system once jointly developed with IBM, the old Digital Equipment Corp. (later acquired by Compaq, which was itself acquired by HP), and others within the Open Software Foundation (OSF). Back in the '80s, the 64-bit OS was known as OSF/1, and the Foundation's final release was in 1994.

In July of last year, HP announced intentions to continue supporting Tru64 UNIX until at least 2012, with the next maintenance release, 5.1B-5, due in the second half of 2008.

Meanwhile, according to industry analyst firm IDC, HP led the Linux market with a 38.6 percent revenue share for the first quarter of this year. HP also held the number one Linux server market position in unit shipments, with a 36.4 percent market share.

HP is now contributing the source code for AdvFS under terms of the General Public License (GPL) Version 2 for compatibility with the Linux kernel.

The code contribution coincides, for example, with the current implementation of a Linux-enabled supercomputing grid environment on HP Integrity servers in southern Italy at the Southern Partnership for Advance Computational Infrastructures (SPACI), a previous user of Tru64 AdvFS on Unix.

Also built-in to HP's Tru64 Unix OS, AdvFS is designed to provide 64-bit performance benefits such as a transaction journaling environment for file recovery in seconds, regardless of the size of the file system, and volume configuration on a single disk partition, an entire disk, or an aggregated volume.

Source code, design documentation, and test suites for AdsFS are available at http://advs.sourceforge.net.

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By davidnicol

edited Jun 24, 2008 - 5:11 PM

IIRC the thing advfs had that was really cool was this concept of taking a snapshot of the file system that you could back up in relative leisure while the operations continued to chug along in COW mode. Haven't seen this feature in Linux filesystems -- it's not something you would trouble to implement for fun.

Score: 0

By ryran

edited Jun 24, 2008 - 5:45 PM

@davidnicol:
Before today I knew nothing about AdvFS, but the snapshot ability you describe it having sounds exactly like what's available in LVM....

Score: 0

By foxfyre

edited Jun 24, 2008 - 11:56 AM

It is always interesting to see so many compare the large proven enterprise systems evaluated with respect to the - oh its like the desktop version that is still on many folks wish list!

This is like listening to some compare LVM2 with the LVM capabilities that were integral to the large AIX and HP-UX systems where virtualization, volume groups, concurrent access management of data, etc. etc. have enjoyed these integral tools (in forms that go far beyond those proposed new toys) for over 10 years!

For the most part, the technologies that are being ported to Linux are coming from the big players - most notably IBM - of robust tools that are being ported to systems such as Linux in a more limited manner. In many cases, these native tools had additional capabilities, sometimes the result of being tightly coupled to hardware systems.

But in almost all cases, the enterprise version capabilities exceed those available on the desktop - most often due to architectural and OS limitations that prevent the full implementation of all of the features.

So be careful in trying to compare desktop apps and technologies originating from enterprise apps. Such a direct 1:1 comparison is not necessarily the best POV.

Yup, if only the proven enterprise systems, of which so many are unaware, would catch up to the new Windows, Mac and Linux desktop tools! LOL!