[Beowulf] distributed file storage solution?

[Mark Hahn]

| Just as an FYI, I would recommend that whatever you decide on, you develop a
| "show me" attitude and test it at your location using your job mix BEFORE you
| spend a dime on it. They you can decide how much time and money it will take
| to make it work.

have you had success with this approach?  I'm pretty sure vendors would have 
laughed at us if we asked for it, though for something small (few TB, 
<100 clients, etc), I'm sure it would work.  then again, anyone could do 
that sort of small project on a weekend.  if you have hundreds of clients,
expensive (non-Gb) interconnect, multiple racks, power,cooling,floor needs,
I don't think you'll get a lot of people offering to do full demos for you.

in short, if you do this, aren't you effectively pre-selecting high-margin vendors?