[Gluster-users] Need help making a decision choosing MS DFS or Gluster+SAMBA+CTDB

Mon Aug 10 05:23:32 UTC 2015

Hello,

Yes it's much like a standard Windows File servers. You will only monitor
DFS-R replication through nagios or so, to check backlog/latency in
replication.

For performance, it's all about what you do with a standard Windows file
server anyway:

   - Check raid controller settings
   - NTFS formatted in 64K, not the 4K default,
   - Defrag since the beginning through the Windows one (scheduled). O&O
   can be a great invest for that if 1 volume go much beyond than 2M files
   - Setup antivirus to only do realtime check on file change, not on
   access. Exclude DFS database from antivirus scan
   - Tune network card (send and receive buffer)
   - ...

Start with 2012 R2, to get SMB v3 and all latest stuff

Cordialement,
Mathieu CHATEAU
http://www.lotp.fr

2015-08-10 7:11 GMT+02:00 David <david.peer at gmail.com>:

> No, but files can be accessed from different clients from different nodes.
>
> OK, so from what you are saying, there is no stability or other issues
> with DFS keeping an eye on workload, and as long as files accessed from one
> node, right?
>
> On Sun, Aug 9, 2015 at 11:24 PM, Mathieu Chateau <mathieu.chateau at lotp.fr>
> wrote:
>
>> I do have DFS-R in production, that replaced sometimes netapp ones.
>> But no similar workload as my current GFS.
>>
>> In active/active, the most common issue is file changed on both side (no
>> global lock)
>> Will users access same content from linux & windows ?
>>
>>
>> Cordialement,
>> Mathieu CHATEAU
>> http://www.lotp.fr
>>
>> 2015-08-09 21:18 GMT+02:00 David <david.peer at gmail.com>:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Thank you very much for detailed answer.
>>>
>>> Most of the clients are Windows based OS's, but Linux will come in the
>>> future.
>>> Now I know that Windows does a bad job with NFS, so this is one concern
>>> that I have, but I also worried about performance and stability.
>>> I used to work with NFS clustered environments, also with GPFS and CTDB
>>> exporting both NFS and CIFS servicing 100s of users and render farms with
>>> no issues.
>>>
>>> Are you aware of any performance challenges/limitations of DFS-R, I mean
>>> real world ones compared to Linux? I aware of MS official DFS docs.
>>> Wonder if there is a comparison of same HW, one runs Gluster replica
>>> (ontop of XFS/Ext4) compared to two nodes DFS-R. (checking concurrent CIFS
>>> session, IOps, network utilization while sync etc..)
>>>
>>> Thanks again,
>>> David
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Aug 9, 2015 at 9:05 PM, Mathieu Chateau <mathieu.chateau at lotp.fr
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>> By DFS, you mean DFS-R.
>>>> Because DFS can also be used only as domain space (DFS-N). This allow
>>>> to publish share that hide real server name and so allow to move target
>>>> somewhere else as needed.
>>>>
>>>> As I do quite a lot of DFS-R, here are the differences using DFS-R
>>>> instead of Gluster:
>>>>
>>>>    - Replication occurs between servers. Client only connect to one of
>>>>    ther server (can be based on AD topology), and is not aware that it's DFS-R.
>>>>    - Replication only transmit block changed in files, not the whole
>>>>    file
>>>>    - Replication is tracked using an internal Jet database
>>>>    - You have reporting tool to see differences & co between servers
>>>>    - This is active/active. If a client can/connect to a server, it
>>>>    will work there.
>>>>    - Lock on files are not replicated. If same file is changed on 2
>>>>    servers at same time, replication will log that in event log and put file
>>>>    that lost in lost&found folder (the more recent win)
>>>>    - Not any issue browsing files/folder tree. Everything act like if
>>>>    it was just a file server.
>>>>    - You can use NTFS permission to fine grain access (Go further than
>>>>    unix style from my point of view)
>>>>    - Quota are working
>>>>    - You can prevent file based on extension
>>>>    - New version can deduplicate content (file server standard)
>>>>    - Writes are not synchronous. Once file is written, it's replicated
>>>>    in the background.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Main difference is that you can't strip inside share content over
>>>> multiple servers like if they were just one (the distributed feature of
>>>> Gluster). Things are evolving with Windows Server 2016, but not yet RTM.
>>>> You can also use shared storage in a more cluster way, with or without
>>>> DFS replication (to survive a server down).
>>>>
>>>> We nearly always use both DFS-R and DFS-N, so we can migrate share to a
>>>> different server without changes on client side.
>>>>
>>>> NAS & SAN vendors don't have choice. NetApp can't use Windows, else
>>>> they can't customize it deeper enough, and they would have to pay license
>>>> to MS.
>>>> I always found that using a linux for CIFS is far away from feature you
>>>> have on Windows side, and issue it generate (like robocopy diff. not
>>>> working without /FFT flag).
>>>>
>>>> Backup of NetApp or EMC CIFS is just not working if doing that through
>>>> share, you have to use NDMP, which is proprietary and generate others issue
>>>> to backup (NDMP license, need to write directly itself on tape...).
>>>>
>>>> What will be your clients ? Windows box ? Linux ? Both ? If both, going
>>>> to same shares?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Cordialement,
>>>> Mathieu CHATEAU
>>>> http://www.lotp.fr
>>>>
>>>> 2015-08-09 17:56 GMT+02:00 David <david.peer at gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> I need some help in making this call choosing between the two.
>>>>> I have no experience with MS DFS or with Windows server OS as a file
>>>>> server.
>>>>>
>>>>> There are some developers that pushing the DFS direction, mostly
>>>>> because the applications that will use it and access will be from Microsoft
>>>>> using CIFS.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now I know that most serious storage, NAS and SAN vendors work with
>>>>> Linux or Unix based because of performance and flexibility, and I'm afraid
>>>>> that DFS will just won't carry the expected load.
>>>>>
>>>>> Does anyone has experience with it?
>>>>> Can some tell what are the PROS and CONS of each that can help us to
>>>>> make a call?
>>>>>
>>>>> Many thanks,
>>>>> David
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Gluster-users mailing list
>>>>> Gluster-users at gluster.org
>>>>> http://www.gluster.org/mailman/listinfo/gluster-users
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.gluster.org/pipermail/gluster-users/attachments/20150810/cd23560b/attachment.html>