In the past, users informally submitted feature requests by email, and
I collected them, then once a version was released, I would publish the
list for users to vote on.
Now that Bacula has become a bigger project, I would like to formalize
the process a bit more. The main change will be to require users
to carefully think about their feature, and submit it on a feature
request form. A mostly empty form is shown below along with an
example of an actual filled in form.
Once I receive and approve the Feature Request, possibly requesting
some modifications, I'll add it to the projects file, which contains
a list of all open Feature Requests.
Feature Request Form
Item n: One line summary ...
Origin: Name and email of originator.
Date: Date submitted (e.g. 28 October 2005)
Status:
What: More detailed explanation ...
Why: Why it is important ...
Notes: Additional notes or features ...
An Example Feature Request
Item 1: Implement a Migration job type that will move the job
data from one device to another.
Date: 28 October 2005
Origin: Sponsored by Riege Sofware International GmbH. Contact:
Daniel Holtkamp
Status: Partially coded in 1.37 -- much more to do. Assigned to
Kern.
What: The ability to copy, move, or archive data that is on a
device to another device is very important.
Why: An ISP might want to backup to disk, but after 30 days
migrate the data to tape backup and delete it from
disk. Bacula should be able to handle this
automatically. It needs to know what was put where,
and when, and what to migrate -- it is a bit like
retention periods. Doing so would allow space to be
freed up for current backups while maintaining older
data on tape drives.
Notes: Migration could be triggered by:
Number of Jobs
Number of Volumes
Age of Jobs
Highwater size (keep total size)
Lowwater mark
|