First thing, all postings to Toasters are "non-official". If you want a sanctioned response to a query send it to support@netapp.com. Many folks in NetApp monitor Toasters and try to help out when we can, but its run by customers for the benefit of customers. Its your list, not NetApp's. This is just one aspect of the unique relationship NetApp has with its customers. NetApp may be a small computer company at a $400 Million run rate today, but we have a vision. Our Vision isn't just growing to be a billion dollar company although we certainly intend to do that. The fanatics here at NetApp, myself included, intend to convert the computing world into Appliance Fanatics. So if you own a NetApp box you're part of the team and NetApp folks treat you as such rather than just a customer.
NetApp people are not allowed to talk about un-announced products in public forums. We are supposed to have NDAs in place before discussing future offerings. In fact we generally refer to all future releases by code name rather than actual name in case the numbers change. Matt's response was a minor slip of the lip...err finger?
NetApp has changed the way we release software. We will not be generating "P" releases which were rollups of "D" patch releases. Instead we intend to issue periodic (quarterly) maintenance releases which rollup most, but not all D patches. The good news is that maintenance releases go through full regression testing. [Wait, let me get into my flame suit] Yes, I know we have released product only to find a serious bug in some feature which customers hit almost instantly after upgrading. I know sometimes it feels like we didn't test the simple things, but believe me, we test the heck out of each release. We've dramatically increased the size of our QA group in the last year. In my 29 years in the computer business I've never seen a sharper, more dedicated bunch of people. We've managed to accumulate the best talent in the Valley, not just in QA but throughout all of the company. We really take it to heart when a release has bugs. We've increased out test coverage and raised the bar on the quality requirements for each successive release.
Now I said not all D patches get into a maintenance release. This is why we ask customers running a D patch release to check with CS before, REPEAT BEFORE, they upgrade to any newer release. Some D patches are not considered ideal solutions to a problem and we'd prefer to rewrite things rather than patch them. Rewriting takes longer and it sometimes isn't possible to get it done in time to make the maintenance release.
Maintenance releases do not add major new functionality. In general maintenance releases are bug fixes and minor enhancements to existing features. We do allow new hardware options such as a roll of a NIC card or a larger capacity disk, but we wouldn't for instance allow an increase in the maximum capacity a filer can support. Occasionally there are minor improvements, for instance improving the scalability of NIS to handle very large environments or adding vif support to gigabit interfaces, but you won't see dramatic changes like changing the admin interface to eliminate rc_toggle_basic commands although a minor enhancement like history editing could happen. The big changes come in major releases.
Bet you are wondering when the heck this Marketing dweeb is actually going to answer the question. So without breaking the rules I think I can say the following.
The last maintenance release for 5.3 codeline was early August, therefore the next maintenance release should be out in about three months since that's the new system. So expecting to see something in November would be a reasonable assumption. You could assume it won't have any major new features but may contain new hardware options and perhaps minor enhancements. Being realistic, plans can change, so although you could assume the above will happen, you shouldn't count on it.
Paul Norman, Product Manager Direct: (408) 822-6288 Network Appliance E-Mail: pnorman@netapp.com 495 East Java Drive Corp: (408) 822-6000 Sunnyvale, CA 94089 Web: WWW.NetApp.Com
-----Original Message----- From: Eyal Traitel [mailto:r55789@email.sps.mot.com] Sent: Saturday, September 25, 1999 2:57 AM To: Matt Day Cc: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: CIFS, UNIX and ACLs
Matt,
Could you state an non-official due date for 5.3.4 ? What will we see (fetures) ?
Eyal.
Matt Day wrote:
Michael van Elst mlelstv@xlink.net wrote:
On Fri, Sep 24, 1999 at 12:33:17PM -0700, Sam Schorr wrote:
We tried to do this but there is a known bug in OnTap
that prevents Samba
from correctly opening a CIFS share on the filers.
this is interesting, are there any details about this bug ?
Samba's client isn't officially supported by Netapp, and there is at least one bug that fouls up smbclient pretty badly (bug #12563). But that bug, and all the other smbclient problems that I'm
aware of,
will be fixed in the upcoming 5.3.4 release. I just tried smbclient 2.0.5a against a filer here running a 5.3.4 test build and every command seemed to work. Be aware, though: that's about all the smbclient testing we've ever done, so no guarantees.
I think smbfs should be OK, too, but I haven't tried it in
quite a while.
Paul/Matt,
Many thanks for this long answer. I'm patient to see if in November I will already see the CLI history and giga-vif, since we are very much anticipating these features....
I understand of course the need to be non-promising, but I think you should take it up to higher company levels to consider having some "future chart". Microsoft and Intel does (well, I don't say that they really publish on schedule, e.g. Win95 (96), Win2K (almost Win21K)), but they give their customers some measures of planning, like you've called it "vision"....
Thanks again, and hope to nudge more on these,
Eyal Traitel Motorola Semi. Israel
***********************************
"Norman, Paul" wrote:
First thing, all postings to Toasters are "non-official". If you want a sanctioned response to a query send it to support@netapp.com. Many folks in NetApp monitor Toasters and try to help out when we can, but its run by customers for the benefit of customers. Its your list, not NetApp's. This is just one aspect of the unique relationship NetApp has with its customers. NetApp may be a small computer company at a $400 Million run rate today, but we have a vision. Our Vision isn't just growing to be a billion dollar company although we certainly intend to do that. The fanatics here at NetApp, myself included, intend to convert the computing world into Appliance Fanatics. So if you own a NetApp box you're part of the team and NetApp folks treat you as such rather than just a customer.
NetApp people are not allowed to talk about un-announced products in public forums. We are supposed to have NDAs in place before discussing future offerings. In fact we generally refer to all future releases by code name rather than actual name in case the numbers change. Matt's response was a minor slip of the lip...err finger?
NetApp has changed the way we release software. We will not be generating "P" releases which were rollups of "D" patch releases. Instead we intend to issue periodic (quarterly) maintenance releases which rollup most, but not all D patches. The good news is that maintenance releases go through full regression testing. [Wait, let me get into my flame suit] Yes, I know we have released product only to find a serious bug in some feature which customers hit almost instantly after upgrading. I know sometimes it feels like we didn't test the simple things, but believe me, we test the heck out of each release. We've dramatically increased the size of our QA group in the last year. In my 29 years in the computer business I've never seen a sharper, more dedicated bunch of people. We've managed to accumulate the best talent in the Valley, not just in QA but throughout all of the company. We really take it to heart when a release has bugs. We've increased out test coverage and raised the bar on the quality requirements for each successive release.
Now I said not all D patches get into a maintenance release. This is why we ask customers running a D patch release to check with CS before, REPEAT BEFORE, they upgrade to any newer release. Some D patches are not considered ideal solutions to a problem and we'd prefer to rewrite things rather than patch them. Rewriting takes longer and it sometimes isn't possible to get it done in time to make the maintenance release.
Maintenance releases do not add major new functionality. In general maintenance releases are bug fixes and minor enhancements to existing features. We do allow new hardware options such as a roll of a NIC card or a larger capacity disk, but we wouldn't for instance allow an increase in the maximum capacity a filer can support. Occasionally there are minor improvements, for instance improving the scalability of NIS to handle very large environments or adding vif support to gigabit interfaces, but you won't see dramatic changes like changing the admin interface to eliminate rc_toggle_basic commands although a minor enhancement like history editing could happen. The big changes come in major releases.
Bet you are wondering when the heck this Marketing dweeb is actually going to answer the question. So without breaking the rules I think I can say the following.
The last maintenance release for 5.3 codeline was early August, therefore the next maintenance release should be out in about three months since that's the new system. So expecting to see something in November would be a reasonable assumption. You could assume it won't have any major new features but may contain new hardware options and perhaps minor enhancements. Being realistic, plans can change, so although you could assume the above will happen, you shouldn't count on it.
Paul Norman, Product Manager Direct: (408) 822-6288 Network Appliance E-Mail: pnorman@netapp.com 495 East Java Drive Corp: (408) 822-6000 Sunnyvale, CA 94089 Web: WWW.NetApp.Com
-----Original Message----- From: Eyal Traitel [mailto:r55789@email.sps.mot.com] Sent: Saturday, September 25, 1999 2:57 AM To: Matt Day Cc: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: CIFS, UNIX and ACLs
Matt,
Could you state an non-official due date for 5.3.4 ? What will we see (fetures) ?
Eyal.
Matt Day wrote:
Michael van Elst mlelstv@xlink.net wrote:
On Fri, Sep 24, 1999 at 12:33:17PM -0700, Sam Schorr wrote:
We tried to do this but there is a known bug in OnTap
that prevents Samba
from correctly opening a CIFS share on the filers.
this is interesting, are there any details about this bug ?
Samba's client isn't officially supported by Netapp, and there is at least one bug that fouls up smbclient pretty badly (bug #12563). But that bug, and all the other smbclient problems that I'm
aware of,
will be fixed in the upcoming 5.3.4 release. I just tried smbclient 2.0.5a against a filer here running a 5.3.4 test build and every command seemed to work. Be aware, though: that's about all the smbclient testing we've ever done, so no guarantees.
I think smbfs should be OK, too, but I haven't tried it in
quite a while.
"Norman, Paul" wrote:
So expecting to see something in November would be a reasonable assumption.
I'm not sure how this relates to other shops, but here at Lockheed we will be in a Y2K configuration freeze starting November 1. Lots of other companies I know about are in the same boat. You might want to keep that in mind when it comes to OS release dates as Y2K approaches.
Graham
-
Eyal Traitel -
Graham C. Knight -
Norman, Paul