We have very exciting times ahead of us: Infinite Scale, the new Data Platform developed by ownCloud is entering the beta phase very soon.
As you may know, the new platform Infinite Scale had its first release 1.0.0 in December 2020 as a Technical Preview. In 2021 and 2022, as many as 20 tech previews were released in total, showing the steady progress of the new system. Now, after approximately two years of development, it is time to switch to beta mode for the 2.0. release.
This blog post sheds some light on what you can expect from the beta, and how we will continue the exciting Infinite Scale journey from here.
Feature Freeze
With entering the beta phase, all features that we plan to have for the upcoming GA (General Availability) release of Infinite Scale, are implemented. There still might be dragons and rough edges and such, but in general, everything is there. The brave ones can check the ownCloud Infinite Scale Repository and the CS3/Reva repo for details and also check the extensive dev docs (before our official docs get published).
Stable Data or Migrations
During tech preview phase, ownCloud did not give any guarantee for the stability of APIs, the layout of the decomposed FS, integrity of data in general or any other technical attributes of the system. The development was moving way too fast to be able to guarantee that.
Now, starting with the beta, whenever a new version of Infinite Scale will be delivered, the update to the new version will automatically convert the data to any new formats that might be required, and the probability for data loss will be as little as the probability of a very severe error in the platform (that is also why a verified backup is still mandatory before any upgrade).
Bug Fixes and Releases
We will also adjust our mode of working once the beta phase starts. Up until now, Engineering has been working in “feature” sprints, each lasting three weeks, in order to get the features ticked off the list. That was very focused and we kept our eyes away from the list of reported issues more than we should have.
Going forward, we will shift into a more Kanban-based bug fixing mode: Issues, performance, deployment and integration topics will be more in focus. We will also adopt the release frequency for a new beta release to every two weeks. We think that people who take the effort to report bugs deserve fast feedback, at best in the form of fixed bugs.
Outlook
Stay tuned for the Infinite Scale 2.0.0 Beta 1 which will be released soon!
If you would like to receive a notification, feel free to sign up here to get a mail once we will go live with the beta.
Along with that we will also share more detailed information about how to install the beta, the feature set and how to give feedback.
We are really looking forward to this new era of ownCloud!
