OT: Packet Filtering to Relieve Server Congestion?

[Hugh Caley]

>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Hugh Caley wrote:
>   
>
>     We're running FC2 on a couple of servers connected to a Nexsan
>     atabeast.  NFS access to the servers is great, until our 200+ node
>     cluster fires up and swamps us.
>
>     I was wondering what people have used as solutions for this problem.  I
>     don't really have to serve the cluster much faster, but I do have to
>     keep non-cluster interactive unix sessions going in decent real time.
>
>     Could I do something like use packet filtering and queueing on the NFS
>     servers to make certain that packets from machines other than the
>     cluster get first priority?  The cluster nodes are on designated
>     subnets; could I have the server put everything else first, or maybe
>     reserve 3/4 of the bandwidth for the cluster so that other things don't
>     slow down too much?
>
>     Could I do this sort of thing on the servers themselves, or would there
>     have to be another machine in front of them?
>
>     We are currently running 256 nfsds on each server, which maybe helped a
>     little bit over the default 8 nfsds.
>
>     Hugh
>
>         
>
> There are all kinds of things you can do here. I would put the servers 
> and the cluster onto a switch or something, and run that into a 
> separate NIC (network interface card) on your servers, and have a 2nd 
> NIC for your other users, for starters.

This would require forcing the cluster to basically be on a separate 
subnet and have separate access to the data sources.  This really isn't 
what I was hoping to do.  The cluster users are regular users and are 
hoping to not have to learn special paths to data that they also use 
when not using the cluster.

Once again, I simply want to make certain that non-cluster traffic has 
precedence.  is there no way to do that without data segregation?

And I'm really only looking for solutions that meet these criteria.

> Also, I would dedicate a separate IDE/SCSI/whatever controller for the 
> NFS drives; can you separate the cluster's NFS directories from the 
> regular users?
> --
>   
See above.

Hugh

> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> "The two most common things in the	| Bill Perkins
>  universe are Hydrogen and Stupidity."	| perk iag net
> 					| programmer-at-large
> 		F. Zappa		| ALL assembly languages done here.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>   

-- 
Hugh Caley | Unix Systems Administrator | CIS
AFFYMETRIX, INC. | 6550 Vallejo St. Ste 100 | Emeryville, CA 94608
Tel: 510-428-8537 | Hugh_Caley at affymetrix.com