[Gluster-users] Newbie: Exploring Gluster for large-scale deployment in AWS, large media files, high performance I/O

Forrest Aldrich forrie at gmail.com
Tue Jul 14 20:21:08 UTC 2015


The instances we use via Direct Connect (a third party company) have 
upwards 20 disks and a total of 80T.   That part is covered.

If we were to experiment with EBS, that would be a different case as 
we'd need to stripe them.

Our present model requires one single namespace via NFS.   The Instances 
are running CentOS 6.x.    The Instances mount the Direct Connect disk 
space via NFS, the only other alternative we'd have is iSCSI which 
wouldn't work for the level of sharing we need.




On 7/14/15 4:18 PM, Mathieu Chateau wrote:
> by NFS i think you just mean "all servers seeing and changing sames 
> files" ? That can be done with fuse, without nfs.
> NFS is harder for failover while automatic with fuse (no need for 
> dynamic dns or virtual IP).
>
> for redundancy I mean : What failure do you want to survive ?
>
>   * Loosing a disk
>   * Filesystem corrupt
>   * Server lost or in maintenance
>   * Whole region down
>
> Depending on your needs, then you may have to replicate data accross 
> gluster brick or even use a geo dispersed brick.
>
> Will network between your servers and node be able to handle that 
> traffic (380MB/s = 3040Mb/s) ?
>
> I guess gluster can handle that load, you are using big files and this 
> is where gluster deliver highest output. Nevertheless, you will need 
> many disk to provide these i/o, even more if using replicated bricks.
>
>
> Cordialement,
> Mathieu CHATEAU
> http://www.lotp.fr
>
> 2015-07-14 21:15 GMT+02:00 Forrest Aldrich <forrie at gmail.com 
> <mailto:forrie at gmail.com>>:
>
>     Sorry, I should have noted that.  380MB is both read and write (I
>     confirmed this with a developer).
>
>     We do need the NFS stack, as that's how all the code and various
>     many Instances work -- we have several "workers" that chop up
>     video on the same namespace.  It's not efficient, but that's how
>     it has to be for now.
>
>     Redundancy, in terms of the server?   We have RAIDED volumes if
>     that's what you're referring to.
>
>     Here's a basic outline of the flow (as I understand it):
>
>
>     Video Capture Agent sends in large file of video (30gb +/-)
>
>     Administrative host receives and writes to NFS
>
>     A process copies this over to another point in the namespace
>
>     Another Instance picks up the file, reads and starts processing
>     and writes (FFMPEG is involved)
>
>
>     Something like that -- I may not have all the steps, but
>     essentially there's a ton of I/O going on.   I know our code
>     model is not efficient, but it's complicated and can't just be
>     changed (it's based on an open source product and there's some
>     code baggage).
>
>     We looked into another product that allegedly scaled out using
>     multiple NFS heads with massive local cache (AWS instances) and
>     sharing the same space, but it was horrible and just didn't work
>     for us.
>
>
>
>     Thank you.
>
>
>
>
>     On 7/14/15 3:06 PM, Mathieu Chateau wrote:
>>     Hello,
>>
>>     is it 380MB in read or write ? What level of redundancy do you need?
>>     do you really need nfs stack or just a mount point (and so be
>>     able to use native gluster protocol) ?
>>
>>     Gluster load is mostly put on clients, not server (clients do the
>>     sync writes to all replica, and do the memory cache)
>>
>>
>>     Cordialement,
>>     Mathieu CHATEAU
>>     http://www.lotp.fr
>>
>>     2015-07-14 20:49 GMT+02:00 Forrest Aldrich <forrie at gmail.com
>>     <mailto:forrie at gmail.com>>:
>>
>>         I'm exploring solutions to help us achieve high throughput
>>         and scalability within the AWS environment.  Specifically,
>>         I work in a department where we handle and produce video
>>         content that results in very large files (30GB etc) that must
>>         be written to NFS, chopped up and copied over on the same
>>         mount (there are some odd limits to the code we use, but
>>         that's outside the scope of this question).
>>
>>         Currently, we're using a commercial vendor with AWS, with
>>         dedicated Direct Connect instances as the back end to our
>>         production.  We're maxing out at 350 to 380 MB/s which is
>>         not enough.  We expect our capacity will double or even
>>         triple when we bring on more classes or even other entities
>>         and we need to find a way to squeeze out as much I/O as we can.
>>
>>         Our software model depends on NFS, there's no way around that
>>         presently.
>>
>>         Since GlusterFS uses FUSE, I'm concerned about performance,
>>         which is a key issue.   Sounds like a STRIPE would be
>>         appropriate.
>>
>>         My basic understanding of Gluster is the ability to include
>>         several "bricks" which could be multiples of either dedicated
>>         EBS volumes or even multiple instances of the above
>>         commercial vendor, served up via NFS namespace, which would
>>         be transparently a single namespace to client connections.Â
>>         Â The I/O could be distributed in this manner.
>>
>>         I wonder if someone here with more experience with the above
>>         might elaborate on whether GlusterFS could be used in the
>>         above scenario. Specifically, performance I/O.  We'd really
>>         like to gain upwards as much as possible, like 700 Mb/s and 1
>>         GB/s and up if possible.
>>
>>
>>
>>         Thanks in advance.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
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