
Windows Blue under the hood: MinKernel and BaseFS - snaky
http://www.zdnet.com/windows-blue-under-the-hood-minkernel-and-basefs-7000013290/
======
jervisfm
The recent articles on ZFS made me wonder if MS had anything planned for
Windows. I was curious so I checked and they apparently have ReFS[1] in
Windows 8 Server.

I think it's separate from the BaseFS referenced here though. ReFS is not
likely to be in the client release until the next version of the OS.

[1] - [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/01/16/building-
the-n...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/01/16/building-the-next-
generation-file-system-for-windows-refs.aspx)

~~~
wazoox
What I can't fathom is that ReFS drops very useful (and commonly used)
features: transactions, sparse files, hard-links, extended attributes, and
quotas.

~~~
hp50g
Most of these aren't used frequently. I imagine they will make a reappearance
in ReFS2 if required

~~~
gecko
Huh?

Sparse files are used extensively by Hyper-V for disk images. You really want
them--especially on Windows Server, which is the only platform with ReFS right
now.

The base Windows install uses symbolic links to unify things like
"Documents"/"My Documents" and other key areas, without which legacy programs
will not work properly. I cannot comment on other Windows deploys, but I'll
add that my team uses symbolic links heavily on NTFS both in development and
production, and that the plethora of articles on adding a link command back to
PowerShell seems to imply we're not _that_ weird.

And at least SQL Server uses NTFS transactions for its magic.

Maybe ReFS2 adds these back, but they will absolutely be missed.

~~~
cnvogel
The article is talking about removing _hard_ links, _not_ _soft_ links.

------
ajross
FTA, about "MinWin": " _A severely stripped down version (almost 20MB) of
Windows 7 was able to run a http server_ "

Last I checked a smallish kernel + uclibc/busybox with most applets (an httpd
is in that list) is around 8MB or so. Even glibc only adds 2MB or so more if
you throw out the locale stuff. Windows is just a different world.

~~~
igravious
There is _absolutely_ no meat in that article. We have no idea about the
technical details of what Microsoft has done. All we have is the aspirational
witterings of a couple of seasoned industry bloggers. There is no use
comparing vague Windows rumours of a not even released product with what Linux
has been able to do since its inception.

And BaseFS sounds like VFS, the virtual filesystem layer in Linux also - you'd
think it was the most novel idea to abstract away common functionality to a
shared core, this design pattern is as old as the hills. These pieces of news
carry next to no information, it's pointless that this got onto the front page
of HN.

~~~
hp50g
NT has had VFS from day one (volume manager). You just don't get to see it
from the UI and win32 abstraction. In fact NT has mounts, a single tree, case
sensitivity and no concept of drive letters. sounds a bit unixy doesn't it?

I have no idea why they came to these conclusions.

------
Magenta
I for one welcome our new Microsoft upvoting cabal

~~~
rbanffy
Seems like they've been hiring...

Lots of young people perceive Microsoft as the underdog in the internet server
space and, somehow, think defending Windows will allow them to capitalize on
its coming dominance of the server market.

BTW, I also notice their downvoting crew did a thorough job with your comment.

~~~
recoiledsnake
>Lots of young people perceive Microsoft as the underdog in the internet
server space and, somehow, think defending Windows will allow them to
capitalize on its coming dominance of the server market.

Underdog? Windows Server takes most of the profit in the server OS market,
same with Visual Studio in the IDE market, IIS in the web server market,
Exchange in the mail server market. And that's competing against free
products.

~~~
rbanffy
> Underdog? Windows Server takes most of the profit in the server OS market,
> same with Visual Studio in the IDE market, IIS in the web server market,
> Exchange in the mail server market. And that's competing against free
> products.

Yet it's conspicuously absent from the servers that run things like Google,
Facebook, Twitter or Amazon. I wonder how the kids explain why is it so.

~~~
nivla
>Yet it's conspicuously absent from the servers that run things like Google,
Facebook, Twitter or Amazon. I wonder how they explain why is it so.

Isn't that similar to assuming Ruby, Django and Go is inept because PHP powers
Wikipedia, Facebook, Wordpress and millions of other websites and blogs... In
business just because X doesn't use it, doesn't mean your product is inferior
or making a loss.

~~~
rbanffy
I only contrasted the fact Microsoft makes a huge profit with the fact it's
completely absent from the companies we identify as the ones leading the way
and the most advanced tech it has to offer is something its competitors have
been doing for years.

~~~
nivla
>has to offer is something its competitors have been doing for years.

I disagree, what their pricing is focusing on is familiarity and 24/7 support.
Also, don't be quick to judge that open-source softwares are not making any
money. Ubuntu, MySQL, PHP.. etc, all of them sell premium business support.

~~~
rbanffy
> what their pricing is focusing on is familiarity and 24/7 support

In other words, they bill you so you don't have to learn something that's not
in their product line. And unless you are paying _a lot_ , their 24x7 support
is laughable when compared with what you get from either Canonical, Red Hat or
Percona.

~~~
nivla
> they bill you so you don't have to learn something that's not in their
> product line

Yes, convenience has a price. Thought that was business 101 or the Walmart
strategy.

>their 24x7 support is laughable

Subjective, since my experience is different than yours, similarly you could
say the same about Canonical, Red Hat, Percona, heck even Google.

~~~
rbanffy
> Yes, convenience has a price.

Not that convenient when you move from Windows Server n (based on Windows x)
and have to relearn to navigate around the entirely different Windows Server
n+3 (which is based on the tablet-friendly Windows x+1).

> heck even Google.

I never had much trouble with Google paid support (I used to work for a
company that has a 6+ million user Gmail account), but my most stellar account
comes from a bug I found in the ndb library of App Engine while it was still
beta. I fired a question to the mailing list and, a couple minutes later, came
an answer from Guido Van Rossum. I guess e-mail support can't get any better
than that.

~~~
nivla
>Not that convenient when you move from Windows Server n (based on Windows x)
and have to relearn to navigate around the entirely different Windows Server
n+3 (which is based on the tablet-friendly Windows x+1).

But a lot more convenient than switching OS. Most FOSS server softwares are
written for Linux. Switching to them requires you to learn OS specific
commands, switches, and workarounds. It is more convenient to stick to what
you are already familiar with.

>I never had much trouble with Google paid support

Exactly. Thanks for proving my previous point that support is subjective. The
common consensus is Google's support is terrible to non-existent but in
reality it is subjective like others. Other's over exaggerate the lack of
Google's support like you did with Microsoft's.

~~~
rbanffy
> But a lot more convenient than switching OS

And from that point on, you only switch when you want to, not when your
database provider decides that in order to get the latest feature you must
also upgrade your server OS to a tablet-friendly one... And even when you
switch, you realize the new software is just like the old one, just better.

> exaggerate the lack of Google's support like you did with Microsoft's.

A friend of mine worked at a Brazilian bank that made the outlandishly stupid
decision to base all backend operations on SQL Server. My horror stories are
nothing compared to his.

~~~
jodrellblank
_And even when you switch, you realize the new software is just like the old
one, just better._

Isn't that exactly what you want when you upgrade?

 _A friend of mine worked at a Brazilian bank that made the outlandishly
stupid decision to base all backend operations on SQL Server. My horror
stories are nothing compared to his._

I guess that "horror story" might be:

"Banco Central do Brasil Boosts Performance, Reporting Speeds, and Scalability

“We saw a 30 percent improvement in data warehouse queries using SQL Server
2012 with the xVelocity feature.... that performance will help our financial
analysts get risk data to customers faster.” José Cláudio Mendonça de Freitas,
Central Bank of Brazil"

[http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2012/...](http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2012/09/26/financial-
services-companies-rely-on-sql-server-2012-to-deliver-the-new-standard-in-
mission-critical-platforms.aspx)

?

~~~
rbanffy
> Isn't that exactly what you want when you upgrade?

Isn't it exactly what happens when you upgrade your Windows 7 machine to
Windows 8?

As for <http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2012/...>, lots
of interesting results happen when projects can't be declared failures
(because it would be a career limiting move: BACEN is a branch of the
executive and analogous to the Fed in the US). And no, the bank in question no
longer exists. It was Banco Santos.

