28 May 2024 to 1 June 2024
University of Ottawa
EST timezone

Zelta: A Safe and Powerful Approach to ZFS Replication

31 May 2024, 16:00
1h
Desmarais 1120 (University of Ottawa)

Desmarais 1120

University of Ottawa

Lecture 50 min SysAdmin Talks: Room 1120 - Friday

Speaker

Daniel Bell (Bell Tower Integration)

Description

Zelta: A Safe and Powerful Approach to ZFS Replication

In the storage management landscape dominated by overpriced and underperforming cloud-based systems, ZFS stands out as a top-notch enterprise backup and recovery framework—especially with FreeBSD’s longstanding first-class implementation. However, mastering ZFS requires expertise and understanding.

Drawing from my experience managing hybrid cloud infrastructure, I'll share my journey with ZFS, highlighting its strengths and challenges. I’ll introduce Zelta, a suite of portable AWK scripts that embodies the Unix philosophy of simplicity and modularity, providing not just a solution for fleet management but a ZFS training tool that will make enterprise storage more accessible.

Outline:

  • Introduction
  • ZFS pitfalls and challenges
  • Accidental mount overlap
  • Destructive common practices
  • Trouble with permissions, inheritance, and more
  • Limitations of popular solutions
  • Appliances & hybrid cloud options
  • Kitchen sink software
  • Inspiring examples of simplicity and modularity
  • The building blocks of ZFS management
  • Introducing Zelta
  • zelta match: Describe the relationship between two dataset trees
  • zelta backup: Replicate a dataset
  • zelta policy: Replicate a fleet
  • Suggestions for upstream collaboration
  • Empowering system administrators to compete with the cloud

Primary author

Daniel Bell (Bell Tower Integration)

Presentation materials

There are no materials yet.