Linux Today Feature: SGI’s XFS Journaling File System on Track for Mid-Year Release to Linux

by John Wolley, Linux Today Silicon Valley correspondent

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, January 31, 2000 – At LinuxWorld Expo
today, SGI will announce a new Linux-based product line and
extensive Linux technical and professional services support, but
perhaps the biggest news for the open source community involves
SGI’s high end journaling file system, XFS. According to Laura
Shepard, product manager in SGI’s high-performance networking and
clustering group, XFS is right on schedule for a mid-year
release to the Linux community, following a beta that is expected
to begin in the March/April timeframe.

XFS–an ‘OS Crown Jewel’ Offered to Linux
SGI first announced its plans to release the source code for XFS to
Linux last May. The headline in the InfoWorld (5/99)
story, “SGI extends an OS crown jewel to Linux effort”, poetically
captured the value of XFS, both to SGI and to Linux. The first
pieces of XFS code were released as open source in August (EE Times 8/99,
The Register
8/99).

Portions of the XFS code were licensed by SGI from third
parties, and hence could not be release by SGI. It was feared in
some quarters that it could take a long time for SGI engineers,
working with open source developers, to recreate those pieces of
code. Apparently this work is moving along quite nicely. And
according to Hank Shiffman, strategic technologist at SGI (quoted
in LinuxWorld
5/99), no changes in the Linux kernel are necessary for it to
work with XFS. The modular nature of the Unix architecture allows
the kernel to interface easily with different file systems.

Other High-End SGI Code–Coming to a Linux Distribution
Near You
In late July, SGI’s new CEO, Rick Belluzzo, announced that SGI was
preparing to release additional high-end code to Linux from its
Irix version of Unix. “The company will contribute work to beef up
the Linux operating system so it supports SGI’s ccNUMA
architecture, SGI’s take on a method for designing services that
allows a manufacturer to cram hundreds of processors into one
machine. The credibility of NUMA (non-uniform memory access) as a
concept has risen in light of IBM’s plans to acquire NUMA server
maker Sequent, he added.” (CNET 7/99a).

A week later (CNET 7/99b), Jan
Silverman, SGI VP of marketing for computer systems, indicated just
how far SGI intends to push the scalability of Linux, and hence its
suitability for enterprise mission-critical tasks: “…SGI hopes to
stand out from the crowd by making its Intel servers able to use
dozens or even hundreds of processors, and for that, ‘you need an
operating system where you can actually muck around with the
kernel’…” The title of an interview in PC Week/UK (8/99)
with Hank Shiffman, SGI’s strategic technologist, graphically
spelled out SGI’s priorities: “Irix takes back seat as SGI goes for
Linux”.

How soon can we expect to see some of this other high-end SGI
code available for Linux? According to Courtney Carr, SGI product
manager for Linux servers, SGI’s LinuxWorld Expo announcements
today will include Pro Pack 1.2 for Linux (formerly called “SGI
Linux Environment”), a set of “reliability and performance
enhancements” that will initially be available for Red Hat Linux
6.1. This is code that “runs on top of a Linux distribution”. SGI
plans to make Pro Pack for Linux available on other major Linux
distributions. (As of this writing, further details on exactly what
capabilities Pro Pack for Linux would offer were not
available.)

High-End IBM AIX Code Soon to Follow
IBM hasn’t yet specified which parts of the source code for its
proprietary AIX version of Unix it is prepared to release to the
open source community. At this point it sounds like IBM is offering
to let the Linux developers pick and choose. According to Miles
Barel, IBM’s program director for Unix marketing, ” ‘We’ll
work with the Linux kernel development team to determine exactly
which parts they can really use’… IBM will leave it to the
Linux kernel team to make the announcements about which parts of
IBM’s offer they decide to accept and their timeframe for
implementation. ‘We don’t want to raise false expectations’ by
giving out more details now.” (Linux Today
1/00)

While we don’t yet have a timeline on the release of the IBM
code that is as definite as that for SGI, according to VNUnet (1/00),
“Irving Wladowsky-Berger, vice president of technology and head of
IBM’s Linux initiatives, said he hoped the first pieces of
technology would be made available within the next few months.”

SGI’s Product and Services Announcements
While the movement of the Irix code towards open source release may
seem like a more dramatic story, the product and services
announcements are significant in their own right. SGI’s theme is
“taking Linux to the next level”, and that’s the next level of
corporate credibility as well as technical capability.

The SGI 1200 is a low-end Linux- and Intel-based server offering
that mounts in racks. It’s designed for use in server farms and is
likely to compete with the Cobalt RAQ 3.

The SGI services to be announced are intended to “make Linux a
safe choice” for enterprise customers. SGI will offer “a full range
of industry-specific consulting services, including advanced
architecture, design and implementation, clustering services,
technology porting services, Linux solutions, and best-of-breed
consulting engagement methodology”. And SGI will offer 23 Linux
courses, five of them LPI (Linux Professional Institute) certified,
at 29 training centers in locations around the world.

Related stories–XFS:
Linux.com: XFS –
What it means for Linux (Aug 17, 1999)
The Register:
SGI releases XFS file system to Linux community (Aug 12,
1999)
EE Times: SGI
begins releasing open-source code (Aug 12, 1999)
CRN: SGI To
Support Linux With XFS (May 24, 1999)
LinuxWorld: SGI
will open source to XFS — Release may or may not be GPL’d (May
22, 1999)
SGI: XFS: A Next
Generation Journalled 64-Bit Filesystem With Guaranteed Rate
I/O (May 21, 1999)
InfoWorld: SGI
extends an OS crown jewel to Linux effort (May 21, 1999)

Related stories–other high-end code coming to Linux:
Linux Today
Feature: IBM on ‘Open Source’ Solaris: Get Real! (Jan 29,
2000)
VNU NET: IBM
making good progress on open source plan (Jan 26, 2000)
PC Week UK: Irix
takes back seat as SGI goes for Linux (Aug 02, 1999)
CNET News.com:
SGI counts on Linux for new servers (Jul 30, 1999)
CNET News.com:
SGI chief hints at next steps in comeback (Jul 23, 1999)