[Gluster-users] Does gluster make use of a multicore setup? Hardware recs.?

[Joe Landman]

On 04/27/2011 04:39 AM, Martin Schenker wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> I'm new to the Gluster system and tried to find answers to some simple
> questions (and couldn't find the information with Google etc.)
>
> -does Gluster spread it's cpu load across a multicore environment? So

Yes, Gluster is multi-threaded.  You can tune the number of IO threads 
per brick.

> does it make sense to have 50 core units as Gluster server? CPU loads

No ... as the rate limiting factor will be the storage units themselves, 
and not the processing behind Gluster.  You could dedicate some cores to 
it, but at some point you are going to run out of IO bandwidth or IOP 
capability before you run out of threading.

> seem to go up quite high during file system repairs so spreading /
> multithreading should help? What kind of CPUs are working well? How much

That high load is often a result of an IO system that is under load, 
poorly tuned (or poorly designed for the workload).

> memory does help the preformance?

Gluster will cache, so depending upon how much of your data is 
anticipated to be "hot", you can adjust from there.

>
> -Are there any recommendations for commodity hardware? We're thinking of

Well, we are biased ... see .sig :)

> 36 slot 4U servers, what kind of controllers DO work well for IO speed?

We've had other customers use these, and they've had cooling issues, not 
to mention issues with expandor performance.

> Any real life experiences? Does it dramatically improve the performance
> to increase the number of controllers per disk?

A good design can get you order of magnitude better performance than a 
poor design.  Lots of real world experience with this.

>
> The aim is for a ~80-120T file system with 2-3 bricks.

Hmmm... going wide for larger scenarios is almost always a better move 
than reduction of chassis.

>
> Thanks for any feedback!
>
> Best, Martin
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-- 
Joseph Landman, Ph.D
Founder and CEO
Scalable Informatics, Inc.
email: landman at scalableinformatics.com
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        http://scalableinformatics.com/sicluster
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