[Gluster-devel] Does gluster suit my need?

Sat Apr 26 22:00:05 UTC 2008

Hi, 

If you just want hot backup, use DRBD, as far as I'm concerned re-access is as fast as pure local, and write access is as fast as your network .. and you get to use your native fs. (ext3 for example) I use it here en-mass and it's 100% .. and you can sit NFS on top. 

I'm a little out of my depth with the HPC stuff .. but I had thouht all the cluster type tools HPC included were aimed at migrating processes across processors, rather than joining remote processors into one large virtual processor ... which is what it sounds like you are after. 

I would be both impressed and rather surprised if you could run an actual VM across multiple cluster nodes .. as opposed to threads of a single application ... we can switch running VM's between cluster nodes with about 100ms outage, but that's about as far as we've been able to go. 

The really funny thing (well, it's not really funny .. figure of speech..) is, GlusterFS is actually the most "reliable" of the platforms we've tried when it comes to live migration of VM's between cluster nodes .. it's just unfortunate that Gluster's other issues make it unusable for this purpose in a production environment. 

Gareth. 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alsan Wong" <alsan at shangen-tech.com> 
To: "Gareth Bult" <gareth at encryptec.net> 
Cc: gluster-devel at nongnu.org 
Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 10:28:52 PM GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal 
Subject: Re: [Gluster-devel] Does gluster suit my need? 

Hi, 

Thank you for your clarification. 

Yes, I don't need the GlusterFS actually. All I need from the GlusterFS is the AFR, and this seems to have to pay a high price. Using NFS + some batch backup script may work more efficiently. 

The interesting part is GlusterHPC. The computing cluster host should have sufficient power to run multiple VMs. So, can the GlusterHPC helps to share the processing power across the VMs is the point. I can't find too much information on GlusterHPC, or what scenario is the best for GlusterHPC. 

On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 8:47 PM, Gareth Bult < gareth at encryptec.net > wrote: 

Hi, 

I've not done anything with GlusterHPC, but from a storage point of view, if your storage is already centralised, I'm not sure there's a lot to be gained by using GlusterFS ... ?? 

Technically, if you have local storage on each node then GlusterFS/Unify is a useful solution, but the performance overhead compared to local storeage can be notable. 

Gareth. 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alsan Wong" < alsan at shangen-tech.com > 
To: "Gareth Bult" < gareth at encryptec.net > 
Cc: gluster-devel at nongnu.org 

Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 4:30:31 AM GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal 
Subject: Re: [Gluster-devel] Does gluster suit my need? 

Hi, 

Sorry, I can't fully get your point. Do you mean: 

    1. I can gain processing power (to help running the VMs) from other nodes of the computing cluster by using GlusterHPC. 
    2. In this case, using NFS instead of GlusterFS would be better. 

No, I didn't try NFS, because I need the AFR. 

On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 10:30 AM, Gareth Bult < gareth at encryptec.net > wrote: 

Sure. 

If you're just after processing power, have you tried NFS? 

-- 
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Tel: 0845 5082719, Mob: 0785 3305393 
Email: gareth at encryptec.net 
Statements made are at all times subject to Encryptec's Terms and Conditions of Business, which are available upon request. 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alsan Wong" < alsan at shangen-tech.com > 
To: "Gareth Bult" < gareth at encryptec.net > 
Cc: gluster-devel at nongnu.org 
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 11:51:11 PM GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal 
Subject: Re: [Gluster-devel] Does gluster suit my need? 

Hi, 

Not exactly. I'd like to run the VMs at the computing cluster host (cause it does have dual quad core CPU with VT support), and gain processing power from other nodes of the computing cluster by using GlusterHPC. The VMs image remains on the computing cluster host, and the data would goes to the GlusterFS. 

Does it feasible? 

On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 6:26 AM, Gareth Bult < gareth at encryptec.net > wrote: 

Hi, 

Are you talking about sitting the VM storage on the GlusterFS in the form of disk images? 

Gareth. 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alsan Wong" < alsan.wong at gmail.com > 
To: gluster-devel at nongnu.org 
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 11:01:38 PM GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal 
Subject: [Gluster-devel] Does gluster suit my need? 

Hi, 

I get several machines, some of them are old (actually, not that old, just 2 
to 3 years). I would like to build a big cluster like this: 

I'll divide those machines into three groups, computing, storage, backup 
storage. As their name, the computing group would be a cluster of physical 
machines which is responsible to run application. 

Best of all, the computing cluster would run several virtual machines across 
the cluster. Thus, the server of the computing cluster would run vmware or 
xen, and hosting serveral virtual machines inside (note: the no. of virtual 
machines may more then physical machines). The other machines in the cluster 
would be diskless (all storage goes to the storage and backup storage 
cluster), and act as the processing power supplier and the being the 
terminal to the virtual machines. 

As I know, such similar architecture can be constructed by using EnSpeed 
(another OSS project on clustering, http://www.enspeed.com ) easily, but one 
of the requirement for me is hard to fulfill - they require all CPUs of the 
cluster nodes support VT, and that is not possible in my situation. 

I've notice that another project, Kerrighed ( http://kerrighed.org ) do also 
fit the needs of my computing cluster, I might try it later. 

So, can I build a such cluster by using GlusterHPC + GlusterFS? or do I need 
to combine another solution(s)? 

-- 
Best Regards. 
Alsan Wong 
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-- 
Best Regards. 
Alsan Wong 

-- 
Best Regards. 
Alsan Wong 

-- 
Best Regards. 
Alsan Wong 