Scheduling¶

The Shared File Systems service uses a scheduler to provide unified access for a variety of different types of shared file systems. The scheduler collects information from the active shared services, and makes decisions such as what shared services will be used to create a new share. To manage this process, the Shared File Systems service provides Share types API.

A share type is a list from key-value pairs called extra-specs. The scheduler uses required and un-scoped extra-specs to look up the shared service most suitable for a new share with the specified share type. For more information about extra-specs and their type, see Capabilities and Extra-Specs section in developer documentation.

The general scheduler workflow:

1. Share services report information about their existing pool number, their capacities, and their capabilities.
2. When a request on share creation arrives, the scheduler picks a service and pool that best serves the request, using share type filters and back end capabilities. If back end capabilities pass through, all filters request the selected back end where the target pool resides.
3. The share driver receives a reply on the request status, and lets the target pool serve the request as the scheduler instructs. The scoped and un-scoped share types are available for the driver implementation to use as needed.