[Linux-cluster] iSCSI GFS

[isplist at logicore.net]

Actually,  johannes had also mentioned the http://www.openfiler.com project 
which seems to be pretty much what we've been talking about. Have you looked 
at it?

> Whether NFS is suitable for your production environment is 100% dependant
> on what you are trying to do. If you have a LAMP cluster/grid that doesn't
> require reliable file locking, you may actually find that NFS ends up

Yes, it seems to be very reliable and as you say, if I don't need the file 
locking, which I would not for media storage, then it would be fine.

> How I/O bound do you expect your front ends to be? If each of your LAMP
> front ends can handle 100Mb, then it'll take 10 of those to saturate a
> single 1Gb interface. If your aggregator has a 10Gb interface on each
> side, that's 100 servers before you run out of I/O, assuming they are all
> going flat out (which let's face it, they won't be). And when you run out
> of that, you start adding additional 10Gb NICs to suit.

There is no rush up front, I'm just planning for growth should it be there. 
I'm not installing dozens of servers up front but I want the path to be there 
should it be required. 

Right now, I have two small clusters in place for testing this. I've got two 
8-way/16GB (up to 64GB each) servers taking care of the web servers, another 
two taking care of MySQL services. 
I've also installed three 1GHZ blade servers for the web servers in another 
cluster. I've been alternating between them as I test things out. As far as 
web servers go, I can use more powerful machines in a smaller cluster or I 
have dozens of these 1Ghz machines which I can add into a larger cluster. 

I've been asking for information on the linux forums but can't seem to get an 
answer about Apache. Wondering what Apache likes more. I know it can use 
memory, but I'm not sure if multiple CPU's are worth using such as above. I 
can't seem to find enough information on how to set up Apache to fully use the 
CPU's and memory of the 8-way systems but it's easy enough to set up for best 
performance on the smaller machines.

> Machines may have RAID on them, but if you lose a whole machine, what
> happens then?

Sorry, I meant that my storage devices are RAID devices. I install drives in 
the chassis, format to RAID then it becomes available for servers to use as 
needed. The chassis maintains the RAID array.

I won't be using drives on servers formatted into RAID arrays, all of the 
storage is and will be external. 

Mike