Gluster users - Jun 2009 - Need a quick answer on "Distributed Replicated Storage" questions

Hi all,

I am attempting to prevent my company from having to buy a SAN to backend our
virtualization platform(xenServer). Right now we have a light workload and 4
dell 2950's (6disks, 1 controller each) to leverage against the storage
side. I like what I see in regard to the "Distributed Replicated
Storage" where you essentially create a RAID 10 of bricks. This would work
very well for me. The question is, how do I serve this storage paradigm to a
front end that's expecting an NFS share or an iSCSI target? Does gluster
enable me to access the entire cluster from a single IP? Or is it something I
could run on a centos cluster (luci and ricci) and use the cluster suite to
present the glustered file system in the form of an NFS share?

Let me back up and state my needs/assumptions:

* A storage cluster with the capacity equal to at least 1 node(assuming all
nodes are the same).

* I need to be able to lose/take down any one brick in the cluster at any time
without a loss of data.

* I need more than the throughput of a single server, if not in overall speed,
then in width.

* I need to be able to add more bricks in and have the expectation of increased
storage capacity and throughput.

* I need to present the storage as a single entity as an NFS share or a iSCSI
target.

If there are any existing models out there please point me too them, I don't
mind doing the work I just don't want to re-invent the wheel. Thanks in
advance for your time and effort, I know what its like to have to answer newbie
questions!

Jonathan,

You can export a Gluster mount via a client with a NFS server however the
performance is pretty poor.  As far as i know there is no way to export it
with iSCSI.

Your best option is to use a single/dual Linux/Solaris iscsi server to boot
strap all your systems in xenServer and then use Gluster and fuse to mount
your /data drive once the system is up and running.

liam

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 5:15 PM, Jonathan Bayles <jbayles at
readytechs.com>wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am attempting to prevent my company from having to buy a SAN to backend
> our virtualization platform(xenServer). Right now we have a light workload
> and 4 dell 2950's (6disks, 1 controller each) to leverage against the
> storage side. I like what I see in regard to the "Distributed
Replicated
> Storage" where you essentially create a RAID 10 of bricks. This would
work
> very well for me. The question is, how do I serve this storage paradigm to
a
> front end that's expecting an NFS share or an iSCSI target? Does
gluster
> enable me to access the entire cluster from a single IP? Or is it something
> I could run on a centos cluster (luci and ricci) and use the cluster suite
> to present the glustered file system in the form of an NFS share?
>
> Let me back up and state my needs/assumptions:
>
> * A storage cluster with the capacity equal to at least 1 node(assuming all
> nodes are the same).
>
> * I need to be able to lose/take down any one brick in the cluster at any
> time without a loss of data.
>
> * I need more than the throughput of a single server, if not in overall
> speed, then in width.
>
> * I need to be able to add more bricks in and have the expectation of
> increased storage capacity and throughput.
>
> * I need to present the storage as a single entity as an NFS share or a
> iSCSI target.
>
> If there are any existing models out there please point me too them, I
> don't mind doing the work I just don't want to re-invent the wheel.
Thanks
> in advance for your time and effort, I know what its like to have to answer
> newbie questions!
> _______________________________________________
> Gluster-users mailing list
> Gluster-users at gluster.org
> http://zresearch.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gluster-users
>
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