diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 8341f47..a7e3269 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -47,6 +47,26 @@ Features - [ ] Ephemeral inline volume - [ ] Snapshots: If the fs supports it (e.g. btrfs) +Motivation +--- +One might have a couple of reasons to consider using node-based (rather than network-based) storage solutions: +- Performance: Almost no network-based storage solution can keep up with baremetal disk performance in terms of IOPS/latency/throughput combined. And you’d like to get the best out of the SSD you’ve got! +- On-premise Environment: You might not be able to afford the cost of upgrading all your networking infrastructure, to get the best out of your network-based storage solution. +- Complexity: Network-based solutions are distributed systems. And distributed systems are not easy! You might want to have a system that is easier to understand and to reason about. Also, with less complexity, you can fix unpredicted issues more easily. + +Using node-based storage has come a long way since k8s was born. Right now, OpenEBS’s hostPath makes it pretty easy to automatically provision hostPath PVs and use them in your workloads. There are known limitations though: +- You can’t monitor volume usage: There are hacky workarounds to run “du” regularly, but that could prove to be a performance killer, since it could put a lot of burden on your CPU and cause your filesystem cache to fill up. Not really good for a production workload. +- You can’t enforce hard limits on your volume’s size: Again, you can hack your way around it, with the same caveats. +- You are stuck with whatever filesystem your kubelet node is offering +- You can’t customize your filesystem: + +All these issues stem from the same root cause: hostPath/LocalPVs are simple bind-mounts from the host filesystem into the pod. + +The idea here is to use a single file as the block device, using Linux’s loop, and create a volume based on it. That way: +- You can monitor volume usage by running df in `O(1)` since devices are mounted separately. +- The size limit is enforced by the operating system, based on the backing file size. +- Since volumes are backed by different files, each file could be formatted using different filesystems, and/or customized with different filesystem options. + ## License [![FOSSA Status](https://app.fossa.com/api/projects/git%2Bgithub.com%2Fopenebs%2Frawfile-localpv.svg?type=large)](https://app.fossa.com/projects/git%2Bgithub.com%2Fopenebs%2Frawfile-localpv?ref=badge_large)