As Wouter, I find the biggest drawback to multi-filesystem layouts is lack of flexibility when resources are scarce; scarcity means laptops in the Wouter’s post. I’m thinking of long-lived servers in need of upgrades, in particular those with a life of unplanned and ad-hoc growth.

When scarcity strikes: drama.  The cleanup dance isn’t a solution, everything clogging /var and other undersized partitions is of value; forget about deleting it. On the first storage famines I go resizing the affected filesystems with unused/un-partioned space(yay, I planned for un-planned growth). After the resizing is done you realize that some other partition also need extra storage.

Here comes the cleanup-moving dance. First put data out of /var and system partitions, then update configuration for the affected services or start symlinking to the new directories.

My two worst cases were bacula related. In both bacula’s database needed more space than its current partition could afford:

• Shortly after updating retain period for data backups to two years (ISO requirement). Database moved to a new server where …
• When we moved from cvs to git; again bacula’ db jumped in size. It had to be moved and symlinked to /var.

These are some of the things I learned in the first years:

• Give testing priority.It’s hard, and it takes resources but if you don’t commit to proper  testing from the beginning, you never will. The later on you make your commitment the harder it becomes, until it is one of your eternal TODO items.
• Care for your internal communication. Provide spaces and tools for conversation, both real and electronic. People should feel comfortable and the information must be readily accessible and search enabled.
• If you can’t trust your employees, distrust them (deeply).
• Marketing and sales are a priority, you are supposed to run a business for money. The perspective of a sales person helps when searching new venues and income sources.

Last: try hard to make fun. I’m sure our last project benefits from the experience gathered; but the energy people are putting into it and the fun we are getting is something we needed in our past venues. I feel that makes a lot of difference, we really like our Porra!

Some one else sharing experiences at a startup-wannabe?