F20 Self Contained Change: Snapshot and Rollback Tool

[Miloslav Trmač]

2014-03-07 14:31 GMT+01:00 Josh Boyer <jwboyer at fedoraproject.org>:

> remember.  It is only concerned with /usr and to as minimal a degree
> as possible /etc.  People likely still want snapshot and rollback for
> their actual _data_ as well.
>

(Choosing a random point in the conversation...)

I'm starting to think that snapshots are *never* the right tool, at best a
local optimization:

   - For the OS and application code and static data: What we really want
   is the ability to reinstall/redeploy this data if it became lost or
   corrupted.  We don't really want point-in-time snapshots; snapshots are
   only a local optimization allowing us to "redeploy the version that has
   been installed yesterday".  An ideal technology would allow "instant"
   deployment of both old and new versions (redeploying and old version and
   deploying a new version have structurally the same effect on a filesystem),
   then snapshots wouldn't be needed.
   - For users' data: What we really want is backups--definitely on a
   different disk, ideally off-site.  An ideal technology would allow
   continuous replication of the data elsewhere.  Snaphots are at best a way
   to quickly access a backup from the past hour, but are not at all a
   replacement for a backup.
   - For configuration: What we really want is a VCS, dealing with
   changesets, documenting who has changed what, when and why.  Snapshots are
   a really poor VCS.

Obviously we don't have all that technology that we "really want", or at
least not in a way that is ready to deploy, but we kind of have snapshots.
Let's just not think that snapshots are "right".
    Mirek
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