DCE/DFS Replacement
Description
The functionality provided by DCE/DFS, Penn State's current authentication, authorization, and distributed file system middleware used to support the Penn State Access Account, will need to be replaced because IBM plans to drop normal support for DCE/DFS by April 2006. While authentication and authorization could be replaced by Kerberos 5 and LDAP, they are not tied together with a secure remote procedure call and are not currently integrated with any secure, robust, scalable, heterogenous, and easy-to-manage distributed file systems.
Some of the solutions worth considering are Entegrity Solutions' DCE/DFS, OpenDCE, OpenAFS and NFS version 4 (NFSv4). Entegrity Solutions still develops DCE/DFS, but their code base doesn't include all of the features and enhancements already present in IBM's code base, they have been slow to fix bugs, and they have been slow in shipping new products. The OpenDCE project has been slow to get off the ground and also needs to start from an older release of the code base. OpenAFS provides very similar, but somewhat reduced functionality compared to DCE/DFS. NFSv4 is adding functionality by borrowing ideas from DCE/DFS and AFS, but its is not yet shipping on all systems and is still insufficient for what ITS would like to have for a solution.
The issues mentioned above are typical of the products in this space. Preliminary investigations indicate that less functionality may need to be accepted now and work with developers to add the remaining functionality to their product over time. ET plans to investigate other potential solutions and assess both their short-term and long-term viability in meeting Penn State's needs. Solutions based on open standards and open source are preferred to prevent vendor lock-in and to more rapidly adapt to the University's evolving needs.
Publications
N/A
Resources
OpenDCE Project
OpenAFS
Network Filesystem version 4
Entegrity Systems DCE and DFS
OpenAFS Best Practices Workshop, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, June 2005
Primary ET Contact
Mike Burns burns@psu.edu
Collaborators
Applied Information Technologies (AIT) in ASET is leading this initiative.
Expected Deliverable(s)
Solution recommendation will be made in advance of the April 30, 2006 end of support date.
Level of ET Involvement
Assist with investigating potential solutions and prototype solutions that show the most promise of meeting the desired requirements.
Initiative Start Date
September 2002