[Gluster-users] Gluster Virtual Appliance

[Matthew Farrellee]

On 02/24/2013 06:52 AM, Gandalf Corvotempesta wrote:
> Hi all,
> i'm planning an installation where 4 gluster nodes are virtualized by
> KVM. One gluster for one phisical server (4 in total)
> The same phisical node hosting gluster image, will also host some
> machines that should boot from gluster.
> Obviously, gluster should be started at first.
>
> Recap: 4 phisical nodes, each node will host at least 10 VM plus 1 gluster VM
> Each VM should boot from the gluster VM
>
> Do you have any advice on this configuration?

If I understand you, the boot path is,

  0. boot 4 physical servers
  1. boot 4 gluster VMs, one per server w/ mapped physical disks
  2. mount gluster volumes on each server
  3. boot generic VMs, 10 per server

If you didn't do gluster VMs,

  a. boot 4 physical servers
  b. mount gluster volumes on each server
  c. boot generic VMs, 10 per server

Doing non-virt gluster saves storing the gluster images (small, 
15-20GB), the mapping of physical disks into the gluster VMs, and any 
potential overhead introduced by gluster working against virtualized disks.

Unless you have some reason to put gluster in a VM, some advice is to 
keep it physical.

You didn't mention it, but the 40 VMs might have just their boot 
partitions mounted from gluster or have both their boot and data 
partitions mounted from gluster. If they have both, you'll want to pay 
special attention to the w/r path through gluster (skip virt, possibly 
multiple volumes w/ bricks spread over spindles).

Best,


matt