[Samba] Is it possible to use Samba as a proxy and cache for a slow CIFS drive ?

[Michael Wood]

On 25 March 2011 15:11, Martin Gilly <mg at metamagix.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> we have special scenario with a slow file share where Samba (maybe combined with other tools) could help by acting like as a CIFS proxy and caching system:
>
> We're testing an Alfresco ECM System which has a CIFS subsystem (based on jLAN) that is simply to slow for our needs. In this setup the appserver Alfresco (SUSE on vmwars ESXi) and the clients are on a local LAN with Gb Ethernet (some clients on WLAN) connectivity and the clients (Windows and Mac) access Alfresco via the CIFS share provided by ALfresco.
>
> The Alfresco server is (due to it overhead (talking to the DB, indexing, etc.)) about six times slower when storing or reading files than a Samba mount on the same machine or a NAS on the same network.
>
> Now my idea is to put a caching layer in the middle between Alfresco and the client that ...
> * ... transparently sits in the middle between ALfresco and the clients
> * ... caches read files and (on subsequent access) serves them directly instead of from the repository
> * ... caches write operations in a store-and-forward manner like a write back cache (ie. signals OK to the client when the file is received locally and than writes back to Alfresco asynronously)
>
> So far, I've been discussing this with some WAFS vendors, but the ones I came to know don't have anything in their toolbox to acheive this. Now I'm completely stuck in finding a way to speed this up :-/
>
> Maybe anybody can think of a way that Samba - maybe in combination with some other tools - can create a solution for this problem ?
>
> thx and kind regards,
>
> martin.

Maybe you could do this with a custom VFS module.

-- 
Michael Wood <esiotrot at gmail.com>