docs/website: v3.9

Signed-off-by: Alex Aizman <[email protected]>

README.md

@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ The ability to scale linearly with each added disk was, and remains, one of the
 Also, AIStore:
 
 * can be deployed on any commodity hardware - effectively, on any Linux machine(s);
+* can be immediately populated - i.e., hydrated - from any file-based data source (local or remote, ad-hoc/on-demand or via asynchronus batch);
 * provides for easy Kubernetes deployment via a separate GitHub repo with
   * step-by-step [deployment playbooks](https://github.com/NVIDIA/ais-k8s/tree/master/playbooks), and
   * [AIS/K8s Operator](https://github.com/NVIDIA/ais-k8s/tree/master/operator);

docs/_posts/2022-03-15-whats-new-in-v3.9.md

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title:  "What's new in AIS v3.9"
+date:   Mar 15, 2022
+author: Alex Aizman
+categories: aistore
+---
+
+AIS **v3.9** is substantial [productization and performance-improving release](https://github.com/NVIDIA/aistore/releases/tag/3.9). Much of the codebase has been refactored for consistency, with micro-optimization and stabilization fixes across the board.
+
+## Highlights
+
+* [promote](/docs/overview.md#promote-local-or-shared-files): redefine to handle remote file shares; collaborate when promoting via entire cluster; add usability options; productize;
+* [xmeta](https://github.com/NVIDIA/aistore/blob/master/cmd/xmeta/README.md): extend to also dump in a human-readable format: a) erasure-coded metadata and b) object metadata;
+* memory usage and fragmentation: consistently use mem-pooling (via `sync.Pool`) for all control structures in the datapath;
+* optimistic concurrency when running batch `prefetch` jobs; refactor and productize;
+* optimize PUT datapath;
+* core logic to deconflict running concurrent `xactions` (asynchronous jobs): bucket rename vs bucket copy, put a node into maintenance mode vs offline ETL, and similar;
+* extend and reinforce resilvering logic to withstand simultaneous disk losses/attachments - at runtime and with no downtime;
+* stabilize global rebalance to successfully pass multiple hours of random node "kills" and restarts - *node-left* and *node-joined* events - in presence of stressful data traffic;
+* self-healing: object metadata cache to support recovery upon `mountpath` events (e.g., drive failures);
+* error handling: phase out generic `fmt.Errorf` and consistently use assorted error types instead;
+* additional options to speedup listing of very large buckets ([list-objects](/docs/bucket.md#list-objects));
+* numerous micro-optimizing improvements: fast datapath query (`DPQ`) and many more.

docs/overview.md

@@ -57,9 +57,9 @@ For background and further references, see:
 
 ## Recently Added
 
+- [v3.9](https://github.com/NVIDIA/aistore/releases/tag/3.9)
+- [v3.8](https://aiatscale.org/blog/2021/12/15/whats-new-in-v3.8)
 - [v3.7](https://github.com/NVIDIA/aistore/releases/tag/3.7)
-- [v3.6](https://github.com/NVIDIA/aistore/releases/tag/3.6)
-- [v3.4](https://github.com/NVIDIA/aistore/releases/tag/3.4)
 
 ## Design Philosophy