[Gluster-devel] Excessive memory usage with 1.3.12

Wed Nov 5 20:05:01 UTC 2008

I haven't been monitoring gluster/zresearch very closely but I don't  
think their "commercialness" / community support effort has changed  
much since I started working with the software about 8 months ago. I  
think the reason io-cache has been getting a bit less love lately is  
because (just a guess) the devs are busy working on more often used  
features (io-cache isn't used very much, judging from the frequency  
it's mentioned on this list) and there are only so many devs to go  
around.

I've had a few other issues (which were mostly problems with my system  
architecture and not actual glusterfs code) and the devs (hey bulde!)  
have gone to heroic lengths to fix my stuff, spending hours with me on  
IRC and even once writing a custom patch to make gluster work in the  
non-standard way I was using it. You can't pay for support like that  
for any other product that I know of. As a suggestion, I've had faster/ 
more detailed support from their IRC channel (#gluster on freenode I  
believe). Also keep in mind that most/all of the devs are in India and  
are usually sleeping when us Americans are working. Though, that said,  
I've gotten help from them during our business hours.

I wish I had some help to offer regarding making it work on Solaris.  
Maybe the same thing is going on here as with io-cache, that is, the  
dev team is focusing on the most important core feature set to get  
1.4.x ready. There is a company behind glusterfs (like I said in a  
previous email) but that doesn't mean they have unlimited developers.  
I'm guessing that Linux is their primary target OS and they are  
spending most resources getting everything working perfectly there,  
and will be able to spend more time on other systems once things  
stabilize for Linux (from what I know this is soon/"now").

This doesn't immediately help you, I know, but I suggest maybe giving  
glusterfs a bit more time/effort to do what you want.

Dan Parsons

On Nov 5, 2008, at 11:50 AM, rhubbell wrote:

> Thanks Dan for the synopsis.
>
> I wish I could experience a bug. (^;
> I'm unable to even build the software on Solaris 10 Sparc.
>
> I've seen a lot of software in production environments but when
> a product has issues just compiling we usually don't put it on
> our short-list of potential solutions.
>
> I had some hope when I first found gluster and saw there was
> activity.  But it seems with the commercial leaning of the product
> that priorities are shifting. I've seen it in lots of other
> projects. Just an observation, not making a morality or ethic
> call.
>
>
> On Wed, 2008-11-05 at 11:43 -0800, Dan Parsons wrote:
>> I'm not really the best person to answer this question but I'll try
>> anyway.
>>
>> There is a commercial entity behind glusterfs - ZResearch(.com) of
>> which most/all of the developers are employed by. The developers are
>> (imo) very good and quick to respond to nearly every problem, it's
>> just this one particular issue where a response/fix has been a bit  
>> slow.
>>
>> glusterfs is moving from 1.3.x to 1.4.x with some fundamental changes
>> involved but I don't think it's the same as what you mean by
>> "transitional state".
>>
>> The product has been extremely stable for me (8gbit/s IO spread  
>> across
>> 4 servers to 33 cpu nodes, bioinformatics work) and this memory "bug"
>> hasn't caused a crash under real work yet, just testing, but only
>> because our job input size is currently small.
>>
>> So in summary, I love glusterfs, the devs/company behind it are  
>> solid,
>> it performs better for my work than others (pvfs, lustre) - it's just
>> this one io-cache memory bug that's been getting less-than-average
>> attention, and perhaps with this recent spark in attention that will
>> change :)
>>
>>
>> Dan Parsons
>>
>>
>> On Nov 5, 2008, at 11:20 AM, rhubbell wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 2008-11-05 at 19:55 +0100, Lukas Hejtmanek wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 10:08:24AM -0800, Dan Parsons wrote:
>>>>> Lukas, just to confirm your findings, I have the exact same
>>>>> problem and
>>>>> reported it about 2 months ago. Just like you, when all my stuff  
>>>>> was
>>>>> running under 32-bit, it wasn't an issue because of the 2GB limit,
>>>>> but
>>>>> now that I'm using 64-bit for everything, it is a potential system
>>>>> crashing bug.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, it's the same, unfortunately, I have no response from the
>>>> authors. So
>>>> nobody cares?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Well somebody cares.  Us.  But I am new here and wondering how
>>> development on this project is funded. Is it all volunteer?
>>> Partially funded via commercial offerings?
>>>
>>> Is the project in a transitional state? Soon to go commercial?
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
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>
>
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