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One of the main objectives of +this survey was to determine expectations from the community for Garage's +upcoming v1.0 release and for future work. Read this article for a discussion +of the results.* + +<!-- more --> + +--- + +The survey collected 127 response during a time period of almost 2 months, +from the 15th of January to the 12th of March. +The first question we asked users were how they have heard of Garage: +the majority answered that they have head of Garage through a link +aggregator or social network such as Reddit or HN. A portion of +users have heard of it from word of mouth, and a significant portion also +answered "Other". Unfortunately we didn't ask respondents for details +if they selected "Other", so I'm quite curious as to what this could be. +Other choices have almost negligible number of responses. + +<center><img src="all-how-known.png" /></center> + +Half of the respondents indicated that they are currently running a Garage cluster +for production data, of which a small fraction indicated running it in a commercial +setting. Another third of respondents indicated that they are currently testing Garage +or have tested it previously. + +<center><img src="all-currently-admin.png" /></center> + +## About currently running Garage installations + +We first asked users what kind of data they were storing in Garage. +The first answer, selected by about half of the participants, +is for storing back-ups, followed closely by personal files. +Other answers follow with a rougly linearly decreasing pattern. + +<center><img src="all-data-kind.png" /></center> + +The majority of users are not running Garage in geodistributed mode, +but many users are also running in 2, 3 or even 4 locations. + +<center><img src="all-n-zones.png" /></center> + +A large majority of users are only using Garage through the S3 API. +The remaining users are mostly using a mix of S3 API and web API, +with a small number of users (5) using Garage primarily as a web server. + +<center><img src="all-access-mode.png" /></center> + +Regarding the size of clusters, the majority of installed clusters are less +than 1TB in size. The others are almost all between 1TB to 10TB. 8 users +indicated that they are running clusters of more than 10TB. Two users that +reported running clusters of more than 100TB, but they also indicated that they +are not currently using Garage, so I think that's the size of the data they +would like/need to store on Garage, but not the actual size of an +installed cluster. The number of objects stored in clusters is quite evenly +split between less than 10k, 10k to 100k, and more than 100k. + +<center><img src="all-cluster-size.png" /></center> +<center><img src="all-cluster-object-count.png" /></center> + +For about half of respondents, this means storing mostly objects of around 100MB in size. +For the others, it's mostly objects of around 10MB. This is very inexact since the +proposed answers for cluster size and object count had such large ranges. + +<center><img src="all-object-size.png" /></center> + +## Satisfaction regarding Garage + +A majority of users reported a high degree of satisfaction with Garage. +About a quarter said that Garage has some significant flaws. A small portion +of respondents indicated that they cannot use Garage due to missing +important features or critical bugs, but still took the time to answer +the survey (thanks to them!). + +<center><img src="all-satisfaction.png" /></center> + +The top 3 strong points of Garage reported by its users are: good S3 compatibility +(first place, with 2/3 of respondents agreeing), good performance on small / low-power +machines, and easy setup. I'd say we are pretty much on target, as these are some of the +main objectives of Garage. + +<center><img src="all-strong-points.png" /></center> + +As for most wanted features in Garage, there is a clear winner with a web interface +for cluster administration, with over 40% of users mentioning it. The second most +wanted feature is support for S3 versioning, with almost 30% of answers. + +<center><img src="all-wanted-features.png" /></center> + +The vast majority of users reported never losing data that they stored in Garage. +Only one indicated that they lost data and it was Garage's fault: this was +because they tried to move an LMDB database between machines with different +architectures, but the LMDB on-disk format is architecture specific. We should +probably be more clear about this in the documentation. + +<center><img src="all-lose-data.png" /></center> + + +# Users in a "homelab/self-hosted setting" + +52 respondents indicated that they are using Garage for storing production +data in a homelab or self-hosted setting. I'd say this is the most +representative portion of Garage users, as it is its primary target. +Let's look at the answers from these users only. + +## About the clusters + +Personal files now takes the first place of the kinds of data stored on these clusters, +still closely followed by back-ups. + +<center><img src="homelab-data-kind.png" /></center> + +These users are mostly not using Garage in a geodistributed setting. +The distribution of answers is very similar to the overall. + +<center><img src="homelab-n-zones.png" /></center> + +Most clusters of these users are less than 1TB and size, +and the remaining are mostly in the 1TB - 10TB range. +There are fewer clusters than average storing more than 100k objects in this population, +but the distribution of object sizes (not shown) is very similar to the overall. + +<center><img src="homelab-cluster-size.png" /></center> +<center><img src="homelab-cluster-object-count.png" /></center> + +## Satisfaction regarding Garage + +Homelab/self-hosting users reported a level of satisfaction a bit higher with Garage, +with almost 3/4 very satisfied. + +<center><img src="homelab-satisfaction.png" /></center> + +The top 3 reasons for using Garage are the same, but good performance on small +/ low-power machines is now taking the first place. + +<center><img src="homelab-strong-points.png" /></center> + +The top 2 wanted features are still the same, now with an equal number of votes. + +<center><img src="homelab-wanted-features.png" /></center> + +# Users in a "commercial setting" + +Fewer users indicated that they are running Garage in a commercial setting, +as this concerned only 12 of the respondents to the survey. + +## About the clusters + +Half of users reported using Garage to store back-ups, +and almost half reported storing observability data and web app / service data. +One third selected static websites. + +<center><img src="commercial-data-kind.png" /></center> + +Users in a commercial setting are more consistent in their use of the +geo-distribution features offered by Garage. Only one third of users are +not running in geo-distributed mode. Another third is running Garage in 2 locations, +and the last third is running in 3 or more locations, thus benefitting from +the best resiliency properties that Garage can offer. + +<center><img src="commercial-n-zones.png" /></center> + +The majority of commercial deployments are storing between 1TB and 10TB of data. +About a quarter are storing more than 1 million objects. + +<center><img src="commercial-cluster-size.png" /></center> +<center><img src="commercial-cluster-object-count.png" /></center> + +It seems that the average object size is much smaller in this population: +the majority of answers correspond to average object sizes of less than 10MB, +and one foruth of answers corresponds to objects of around 1MB. + +<center><img src="commercial-object-size.png" /></center> + + +## Satisfaction regarding Garage + +Three quarter of these users reported a high degree of satisfaction with Garage, +about the same as for homelab users. + +<center><img src="commercial-satisfaction.png" /></center> + +The most liked qualities of Garage are a bit different. Fewer users reported +satisfaction due to the easy setup of Garage, but more users indicated +that the possibility of easily adding and removing nodes was important to them. +Good tolerance to offline nodes and crashes, and good performance in the face +of latency, which are the core properties that make Garage work well in +geo-distributed settings, were selected by two thirds of users, most likely +the same that said they are running in geo-distributed mode. + +<center><img src="commercial-strong-points.png" /></center> + +A web interface for cluster administration is still the most wanted feature, with 40% +of votes. Then, one third voted for better monitoring and observability, and for +per-bucket levels of consistency and numbers of replicas. Only 25% voted for S3 +versioning. + +<center><img src="commercial-wanted-features.png" /></center> + +# Users that have the biggest clusters + +7 users reported running clusters storing more than 10TB of data. +About half of these users are using Garage for a homelab or self-hosted setup, +and one is in a commercial setting. + +<center><img src="big-currently-admin.png" /></center> + +## About the clusters + +Almost all of these users are using Garage to store back-ups. +Multimedia files are the second most selected option, which +would explain why these clusters are so big. + +<center><img src="big-data-kind.png" /></center> + +These deployments are quite evenly split between not +being geo-replicated and being geo-replicated in 2 or 3 locations. + +<center><img src="big-n-zones.png" /></center> + +## Satisfaction regarding garage + +A majority of users report a high degree of satisfaction with Garage, +but many users also reported significant flaws. + +<center><img src="big-satisfaction.png" /></center> + +Unsurprisingly, when clusters start becoming big enough, the most requested +improvement is better performance around the board. +Per-bucket levels of consistency and number of replicas was also selected +by almost half of users. + +<center><img src="big-wanted-features.png" /></center> + +# Users that reported that garage had some significant flaws + +Focusing on users that reported that Garage is usable for them but has "significant flaws", +the two most requested features were a web administration interface and S3 versioning. +Bucket-level ACLs (that would allow anonymous access directly from the S3 endpoint) +and performance improvements came next. + +<center><img src="flaws-wanted-features.png" /></center> + +Concerning users that said that Garage has critical issues that is preventing +them from using it, the "Other" option was the most selected answer for the +requested features. Licensing issues allegedly preventing commercial use were +cited by a few users (hint: it's actually a non-issue, and we will write about +this at some point), but I think for most of these users, they have a specific +use case in mind which is not targeted by Garage. For instance, several have +indicated that they would need POSIX filesystem compatibility and/or the +possibility to use Garage as a CSI driver in Kubernetes (unfortunately, this is +mostly impossible to achieve with good performance in a geo-distributed +environment, and the principles on which Garage is based explicitly prevents it +from fulfilling this role). + diff --git a/content/blog/2024-03-survey/update.sh b/content/blog/2024-03-survey/update.sh new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e1a605 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/blog/2024-03-survey/update.sh @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +for f in *.png; do + cp -v /home/lx/Deuxfleurs/documents/survey/$f . +done |
