Scale status.

[spacecabbie]

I was wondering looking at the alpha version it looks smooth and good.
Now alpha is nowhere production ready and I do realize that, That said I was wondering if there are things missing at this point or if its mostly polishing or bug finding.
Considering jumping the gun and switching to scale since I do despise FreeBSD so much, and I can live with bugs. Is there any documentation about what to expects from the different alpha beta etc stages ?

 

[ornias]

I was wondering looking at the alpha version it looks smooth and good.

Have been using it since last, in "home-production", once running it has been solid for months. without big issues.
But there where bugs at reboots and some flakyness with update detection for example. But nothing that broke any data or services

Now alpha is nowhere production ready and I do realize that,

That also depend on your production. For a small home with lot of free time to fix issue if they show up, it might be decent enough. to run full-time

That said I was wondering if there are things missing at this point or if its mostly polishing or bug finding.

If you look at the table on the recent version announcement, you would notice that it lists features as "alpha, Beta, RC or RELEASE".
Alpha basically means "features might be missing or placeholders or a bugfest",
Beta means "significant bugfinding required",
RC means "Mostly done"
RELEASE means "Runs as well as TrueNAS core, not expecing any big issues"

Considering jumping the gun and switching to scale since I do despise FreeBSD so much

Why despise BSD?

, and I can live with bugs.

There is one feature that is completely missing: Clustered datasets (data spread and synced over multiple servers)
If thats not a feature you need, the other features are all in different stages of working (see the table)

Is there any documentation about what to expects from the different alpha beta etc stages ?

Alpha, Beta, RC and Release actually do have a meaning (see above).
Had a discussion about that with Morgan months ago and since then IX started publishing the "Per feature" table with alpha-beta-rc-release tags.

The Alpha, Beta, RC and Release tags for the complete product are almost allways the lowest status of any feature.
So if there is 1 alpha feature (because it is missing) and the rest is Beta, RC or Release, the release would be flagged as "alpha" (because there are obviously still things missing from the release, because they are also missing from a part of said release ;-) )

 

[morganL]

For a single Node deployment, we could have labelled this 20.12 version as BETA. Expect some bugs but it is generally OK. We only recommend that people use it if they have a a backup of any important data. It good for users that are comfortable with reporting bugs and helping with diagnosis. Due to lack of widespread field testing, there will be SW/HW incompatibility issues which will generally be found early in the installation.

For a multi-node cluster deployment, it is still ALPHA.... we are using it to test internally, but we don't expect many users to be able to set it up without the TrueCommand UI. We are keen to get to that stage early in 2021.

Thanks to the 100s of users and developers we are finding and resolving issues pretty quickly. Enthusiast that do try to get their TrueNAS SCALE system into production should report on success and failure. Everyone is keen to hear the war (and peace) stories.

 

[spacecabbie]

Have been using it since last, in "home-production", once running it has been solid for months. without big issues.
But there where bugs at reboots and some flakyness with update detection for example. But nothing that broke any data or services

That also depend on your production. For a small home with lot of free time to fix issue if they show up, it might be decent enough. to run full-time

Perfect home use is exactly what I use it for I'll have to look at how to deal with jails the one and only nice feature of FreeBSD dockers are fine I gues but I love the ability to treat them as a mini vm I'll have to look into it.

If you look at the table on the recent version announcement, you would notice that it lists features as "alpha, Beta, RC or RELEASE".
Alpha basically means "features might be missing or placeholders or a bugfest",
Beta means "significant bugfinding required",
RC means "Mostly done"
RELEASE means "Runs as well as TrueNAS core, not expecing any big issues"

I am an Idiot and skipped half of the post (as an #aspie) I read way to fast for my own good. Concider the question unasked... Is that a thing ?

Why despise BSD?

The fact that everything looks like and feels like Linux but is not. Switches that I am used to are not there, limited compatibility with software I use. Shell is different etc. Just not my thing.

There is one feature that is completely missing: Clustered datasets (data spread and synced over multiple servers)
If that's not a feature you need, the other features are all in different stages of working (see the table)

Alpha, Beta, RC and Release actually do have a meaning (see above).
Had a discussion about that with Morgan months ago and since then IX started publishing the "Per feature" table with alpha-beta-rc-release tags.

Thank you for still taking the time to answer the question this information is usefull thanks !

The Alpha, Beta, RC and Release tags for the complete product are almost allways the lowest status of any feature.
So if there is 1 alpha feature (because it is missing) and the rest is Beta, RC or Release, the release would be flagged as "alpha" (because there are obviously still things missing from the release, because they are also missing from a part of said release ;-) )

I my defense usually its not specified what a alpha has or not has kudo's for the devs to detail its so.

 

[spacecabbie]

For a single Node deployment, we could have labelled this 20.12 version as BETA. Expect some bugs but it is generally OK. We only recommend that people use it if they have a a backup of any important data. It good for users that are comfortable with reporting bugs and helping with diagnosis. Due to lack of widespread field testing, there will be SW/HW incompatibility issues which will generally be found early in the installation.

For a multi-node cluster deployment, it is still ALPHA.... we are using it to test internally, but we don't expect many users to be able to set it up without the TrueCommand UI. We are keen to get to that stage early in 2021.

Thanks to the 100s of users and developers we are finding and resolving issues pretty quickly. Enthusiast that do try to get their TrueNAS SCALE system into production should report on success and failure. Everyone is keen to hear the war (and peace) stories.

Thanks ! that kinda settles it gona have to move over. I am not a advance user of zfs should the data pools be detected ? or is migration needed, Also Ofcourse will post back here when moved over.

 

[morganL]

Pools can be imported manually from TrueNAS CORE 12.0. However, we have not completed the work to migrate the configurations. So, there will manual work to configure your system to reproduce the existing services. Easy if it's a couple of shares, but tedious if it's more complex.

In TrueNAS CORE 12.0-U2, we plan to simplify this migration. However, there will be no Jail or Plugin migration. Instead, it will be use docker and kubernetes.

Right now with TrueNAS cORE 12.0-U1, it is easier for people to build a new TrueNAS SCALE system... rather than migrate an existing system. You can then replicate data from a CORE system to a new SCALE system.

 

[spacecabbie]

Pools can be imported manually from TrueNAS CORE 12.0. However, we have not completed the work to migrate the configurations. So, there will manual work to configure your system to reproduce the existing services. Easy if it's a couple of shares, but tedious if it's more complex.

In TrueNAS CORE 12.0-U2, we plan to simplify this migration. However, there will be no Jail or Plugin migration. Instead, it will be use docker and kubernetes.

Right now with TrueNAS cORE 12.0-U1, it is easier for people to build a new TrueNAS SCALE system... rather than migrate an existing system. You can then replicate data from a CORE system to a new SCALE system.

Perfect, pools is all I need no point in migrating the config.

 

[FlangeMonkey]

In TrueNAS CORE 12.0-U2, we plan to simplify this migration.

@morganL with the release of SCALE-21.02-ALPHA.1 (congrats by the way) and CORE-12.0-U2 I am planning on migrating to SCALE from CORE. I understand that pool migration is working and I'm fine with doing a manual migration, however, what is the status of this plan to migrate configuration from CORE to SCALE, as 12.0-U2 is released?

Thanks,

 

[sretalla]

I understand that pool migration is working and I'm fine with doing a manual migration, however, what is the status of this plan to migrate configuration from CORE to SCALE, as 12.0-U2 is released?

Last time I saw a discussion on this it was planned somewhere from March or later to begin the work, so I don't expect it before (or even with) the Beta release.

 

[ornias]

Last time I saw a discussion on this it was planned somewhere from March or later to begin the work, so I don't expect it before (or even with) the Beta release.

The work has already started long ago by now, but afaik it's not yet a full gui streamlined migration process (aka it isn't finished)