From owner-freebsd-scsi Tue Jan 28 23:38:05 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA16182 for freebsd-scsi-outgoing; Tue, 28 Jan 1997 23:38:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from alpo.whistle.com (alpo.whistle.com [207.76.204.38]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA16177 for ; Tue, 28 Jan 1997 23:38:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from current1.whistle.com (current1.whistle.com [207.76.205.22]) by alpo.whistle.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id XAA11525; Tue, 28 Jan 1997 23:33:13 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <32EEFCD5.794BDF32@whistle.com> Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 23:31:33 -0800 From: Julian Elischer Organization: Whistle Communications X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2-CURRENT i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Simon Shapiro CC: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Subject: Re: NewComer Questions... References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Simon Shapiro wrote: > > I am learning slowly, and just discovered this mailing list. > > In way of introduction, I am working on a high speed database > engine for embedded telephony applications. > > We need to develop the following functionality: > > 1. Multi-initiator support I assume you mean in SCSI? we ahve some basic support for that but it requires a SCSI host adapter that supports it.. it hasn't been exercised in years. (I wrote it iwith Peter Dufault but it's a rarely used feature. Or are you alking about several machines sharing a single bus?) > 2. DLM Daringly Lowfat Milk? > 3. Non-stop operation hmm this is a tricky one.. what's your definition of non-stop? > 4. Very large (hundreds of Gigabytes) databases not un heard of.. we have several people into teh > 100MB range.. it does scale, though I have some ideas of some little NITS that will require hitting on the head.. i.e. nomenclomature things not really technical limits. > 5. Very fast (400 I/O's per second sustained) databases. we can get about 100 per disk so with 4 disks :) > > Because O/S source is very criticsl for such effort, the > ``free'' ones area natural choice. > > After 2 years or more of Linux usage. I decided (at least > for now) to not use it. FreeBSD seems very attractive. That's why we use it.. > > My questions to this forum are: > > 1. Minor device designation for systems with up to 20 disk > controllers (PCI), FCAL interfaces (with over 100 targets > per bus. controllers with multiple busses, etc. your nomenclature is confusing me.. FCAL? there are boards with 3 bosses an d2 bisses that are supported. W can support PCI bridges to get more slots > > 2. Naming conventions for /dev entries for such beasts. /dev/{r}sd[0-9][0-9] there is a limit at the moment to about 32 drives per machine (I think) but it's a rather artificial limit and could be removed relativly easily. > > 3. Moving all SCSI devices to a /dev/{r}dsk... not sure what you mean by this..... if you don't like the names there is always mknod:) (so that ca't be what you mean.. it's too easy) > > 4. Any documents about SCSI HBA driver entry points ah there's the rub.. I guess I'm going to have to write that one day.. 6 years isn't too long is it? (since I wrote the code) > > 5. Anyone interested in helping out sure.. but it depends on what you want to do and how much work you are willing to do yourself :) I'm extremely busy these days.. but I can offer advice. justin gibbs might also have good input for you as he's been the person doing the most work recently. > > Thanx in advance, > > Simon