Thread: PGCON meetup FreeNAS/FreeBSD: In Ottawa Tue & Wed.

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.

I'm moving this to -advocacy, as it seems more appropriate there...

On 5/20/13 10:31 AM, Alfred Perlstein wrote:
> 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
personabout using Postgresql in FreeNAS and offering it as an extension to the platform as a plug-in technology.
Unfortunatelydue 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
thebay area. 

Were you able to meetup with anyone? If not you should attend the SF Postgres Users Group meeting.

> Some info on me:  My name is Alfred Perlstein, I am a FreeBSD developer and FreeNAS project lead.  I am the VP of
SoftwareEngineering at iXsystems.  I have been a fan of Postgresql for many years.  In the early 2000s we build a high
speedweb 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
Postgresqlinto 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
thisbetter using Postgresql, while still maintaining our ease of config export (single file) and small footprint would
beinteresting. 

Probably best to discuss in person at SFPUG... :)

> 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
cohesiveaddition to FreeNAS. 

Doesn't sound like that should be that terribly hard; you'd probably want to tweak the stock postgresql.conf for
improvedperformance. 

> 3) Statistic monitoring / EagleEye
> In FreeBSD/FreeNAS I have developed a system called EagleEye. EagleEye is a system where all mibs are easily
exportablewith timestamps in a common format (for now YAML & modified CSV) which is then consumed by a utility which
canthen provide graphs. The entire point of EagleEye is to eventually upstream the modifications to future proof
statisticstracking into the FreeBSD and FreeNAS systems.  I have spoken with some Illuminos/ZFS developers and they are
interestedas well. 

Are you thinking of storing that data in Postgres? You might find http://labs.omniti.com/labs/reconnoiter interesting.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Data Architect                       jim@nasby.net
512.569.9461 (cell)                         http://jim.nasby.net