Hello PostgreSQL Hackers,
I am now in Ottawa, last week we wrapped up the BSDCon and I was hoping
to chat with a few Postgresql developers in person about using
Postgresql in FreeNAS and offering it as an extension to the platform as
a plug-in technology. Unfortunately due to time constraints I can not
attend the entire conference and I am only in town until Wednesday at noon.
I'm hoping there's a good time to talk to a few developers about
Postgresql + FreeNAS before I have to depart back to the bay area.
Some info on me: My name is Alfred Perlstein, I am a FreeBSD developer
and FreeNAS project lead. I am the VP of Software Engineering at
iXsystems. I have been a fan of Postgresql for many years. In the
early 2000s we build a high speed web tracking application on top of
Postgresql and worked closely with the community to shake out
performance and bug, so closely that Tom Lane and Vadim Mikheev////had
logins on our box. Since that time I have tried to get Postgresql into
as many places as possible.
Some info on the topics I wanted to briefly discuss:
1) Using Postgresql as the config store for FreeNAS.
We currently use SQLITE, SQLITE fits our needs until we get to the point
of replication between HA (high availability) units. Then we are forced
to manually sync data between configurations. A discussion on how we
might do this better using Postgresql, while still maintaining our ease
of config export (single file) and small footprint would be interesting.
2) Postgresql plugin for FreeNAS.
Flip a switch and suddenly your file server is also serving enterprise
data. We currently have a plug-in architecture, but would like to
discuss the possibility of a tighter integration so that Postgresql
looks like a more cohesive addition to FreeNAS.
3) Statistic monitoring / EagleEye
In FreeBSD/FreeNAS I have developed a system called EagleEye. EagleEye
is a system where all mibs are easily exportable with timestamps in a
common format (for now YAML & modified CSV) which is then consumed by a
utility which can then provide graphs. The entire point of EagleEye is
to eventually upstream the modifications to future proof statistics
tracking into the FreeBSD and FreeNAS systems. I have spoken with some
Illuminos/ZFS developers and they are interested as well.
I think that is all I have, please drop me a note if you'll have some
time in Ottawa today, tomorrow or early Wednesday. I'd love to discuss
and buy some beers for the group.
thank you,
-Alfred Perlstein
VP Software Engineering, iXsystems.
