GlusterFS is a highly modular distributed filesystem. The translator model used by GlusterFS allows new filesystem features to be easily developed and included in GlusterFS.

But the GlusterFS management daemon, GlusterD, makes it hard for developers to actually get their new features into the hands of end users. Almost any new filesystem feature needs to have code written for it in GlusterD to ensure it is actually available for use. GlusterD, unlike the rest of GlusterFS, is a single monolithic, with a very large, undocumented and hard to navigate code base. This makes it very hard for feature developers to integrate their feature in GlusterD. In addition to this, GlusterD makes it harder for GlusterFS to scale, harder to integrate with external projects and takes up a lot of maintenance effort.

GlusterD-2.0 (GD2) is a ground up re-implementation of the management daemon, designed from the beginning to overcome the above problems. GD2 and its internal frameworks are designed to be flexible, extensible and pluggable. GD2 makes it easier for developers to integrate their newer features into GlusterFS as well as allow easier integration of GlusterFS and other projects. In this talk, we'll be covering how GD2 and the new frameworks work to solve the problems above.

This talk will be useful for developers interested in working on/with GlusterFS, users who want to understand how GlusterFS manages itself and people with a general interest in management and distributed systems.