Re: [PATCH] enclosure: add support for enclosure services

From: James Smart
Date: Wed Feb 13 2008 - 11:23:23 EST


James Bottomley wrote:
I don't disagree with that, but the fact is that there isn't such a
tool. It's also a fact that the enterprise is reasonably unhappy with
the lack of an enclosure management infrastructure, since it's something
they got on all the other unix systems.

I don't disagree.

I think a minimal infrastructure in-kernel does just about everything
the enterprise wants ... and since it's stateless, they can always use
direct connect tools in addition.

However, I'm happy to be proven wrong ... anyone on this thread is
welcome to come up with a userland enclosure infrastructure. Once it
does everything the in-kernel one does (which is really about the
minimal possible set), I'll be glad to erase the in-kernel one.

yeah, but... putting something new in, only to pull it later, is a bad
paradigm for adding new mgmt interfaces. Believe me, I've felt users pain in
the reverse flow : driver-specific stuff that then has to migrate to upstream
interfaces, complicated by different pull points by different distros. You can
migrate a management interface, but can you really remove/pull one out ?

Isn't it better to let the lack of an interface give motivation to create
the "right" interface, once the "right way" is determined - which is what I
thought we were discussing ? or is this simply that there is no motivation
until something exists, that people don't like, thus they become motivated ?

-- james s
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