[Gluster-users] GlusterFS performance

[harry mangalam]

This kind of info is surprisingly hard to obtain.  The gluster docs do contain 
some of it, ie:

<http://community.gluster.org/a/linux-kernel-tuning-for-glusterfs/>

I also found well-described kernel tuning parameters in the FHGFS wiki (as 
another distibuted fs, they share some characteristics)

http://www.fhgfs.com/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=StorageServerTuning

and more XFS tuning filesystem params here:

<http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Optimizing_Performance#Further_Information>

and here:
<http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2011/12/16/setting-up-xfs-the-simple-
edition>

But of course, YMMV and a number of these parameters conflict and/or have 
serious tradeoffs, as you discovered.

LSI recently loaned me a Nytro SAS controller (on-card SSD-cached) which seems 
pretty phenomenal on a single brick (and is predicted to perform well based on 
their profiling), but am waiting for another node to arrive before I can test 
it under true gluster conditions.  Anyone else tried this hardware?

hjm

On Tuesday, March 05, 2013 12:34:41 PM Nikita A Kardashin wrote:
> Hello all!
> 
> This problem is solved by me today.
> Root of all in the incompatibility of gluster cache and kvm cache.
> 
> Bug reproduces if KVM virtual machine created with cache=writethrough
> (default for OpenStack) option and hosted on GlusterFS volume. If any other
> (cache=writeback or cache=none with direct-io) cacher used, performance of
> writing to existing file inside VM is equal to bare storage (from host
> machine) write performance.
> 
> I think, it must be documented in Gluster and maybe filled a bug.
> 
> Other question. Where I can read something about gluster tuning (optimal
> cache size, write-behind, flush-behind use cases and other)? I found only
> options list, without any how-to or tested cases.
> 
> 
> 2013/3/5 Toby Corkindale <toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au>
> 
> > On 01/03/13 21:12, Brian Candler wrote:
> >> On Fri, Mar 01, 2013 at 03:30:07PM +0600, Nikita A Kardashin wrote:
> >>>     If I try to execute above command inside virtual machine (KVM),
> >>>     first
> >>>     time all going right - about 900MB/s (cache effect, I think), but if
> >>> 
> >>> I
> >>> 
> >>>     run this test again on existing file - task (dd) hungs up and can be
> >>>     stopped only by Ctrl+C.
> >>>     Overall virtual system latency is poor too. For example, apt-get
> >>>     upgrade upgrading system very, very slow, freezing on "Unpacking
> >>>     replacement" and other io-related steps.
> >>>     Does glusterfs have any tuning options, that can help me?
> >> 
> >> If you are finding that processes hang or freeze indefinitely, this is
> >> not
> >> a question of "tuning", this is simply "broken".
> >> 
> >> Anyway, you're asking the wrong person - I'm currently in the process of
> >> stripping out glusterfs, although I remain interested in the project.
> >> 
> >> I did find that KVM performed very poorly, but KVM was not my main
> >> application and that's not why I'm abandoning it.  I'm stripping out
> >> glusterfs primarily because it's not supportable in my environment,
> >> because
> >> there is no documentation on how to analyse and recover from failure
> >> scenarios which can and do happen. This point in more detail:
> >> http://www.gluster.org/**pipermail/gluster-users/2013-**
> >> January/035118.html<http://www.gluster.org/pipermail/gluster-users/2013-J
> >> anuary/035118.html>
> >> 
> >> The other downside of gluster was its lack of flexibility, in particular
> >> the
> >> fact that there is no usage scaling factor on bricks, so that even with a
> >> simple distributed setup all your bricks have to be the same size.  Also,
> >> the object store feature which I wanted to use, has clearly had hardly
> >> any
> >> testing (even the RPM packages don't install properly).
> >> 
> >> I *really* wanted to deploy gluster, because in principle I like the idea
> >> of
> >> a virtual distribution/replication system which sits on top of existing
> >> local filesystems.  But for storage, I need something where operational
> >> supportability is at the top of the pile.
> > 
> > I have to agree; GlusterFS has been in use here in production for a while,
> > and while it mostly works, it's been fragile and documentation has been
> > disappointing. Despite 3.3 being in beta for a year, it still seems to
> > have
> > been poorly tested. For eg, I can't believe almost no-one else noticed
> > that
> > the log files were busted.. nor that the bug report has been around for
> > quarter of a year without being responded to or fixed.
> > 
> > I have to ask -- what are you moving to now, Brian?
> > 
> > -Toby
> > 
> > 
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---
Harry Mangalam - Research Computing, OIT, Rm 225 MSTB, UC Irvine
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