Gluster users - Sep 2009 - (newbie) Basic Configuration Sanity Check

Hello
 
I'm a newbie to glusterfs but have read all the docs and faq's but have
been unable to find docs to answer my basic query.
 
I'm looking to replace 2 localized NFS solutions which are kept
(roughly) in sync via rsync with a simple glusterfs solution using AFR.
The idea being to keep the localized NFS but have AFR keep the data in
sync between locations.
 
My setup is as follows
 
hosts uk1 and us1 have the same server volfile and client volfiles
(except for the directory name and auth.addr names) as per the 'AFR
(Mirror) across Two Storage Servers' configuration example from the
glusterfs docs.
 
host uk1 is running glusterfsd (/usr/sbin/glusterfsd -f
/etc/glusterfs/glusterfsd.vol) and host us1 is mounting (mount -t
glusterfs /etc/glusterfs/glusterfs.vol /dir) the dir listed in the posix
volume in the glusterfsd.vol file
 
Everything appears to work as expected. Anything written to either host
appears on the other host.
 
I have exported (/etc/exports) the filesystems and NFS mounted them on
other (local) hosts with writes from the NFS clients appearing on both
uk1 and us1
 
My question is, is the above setup the 'best practice' for this solution
? or have I missed something along the way ?
 
One thing I have noticed is that NFS writes to us1 (the glusterfs
client?) are really slow - almost unusable - whereas NFS writes to uk1
(the glusterfs server?) are comparable with raw NFS
 
Any help/guidance would be very much appreciated.
 
glusterfs 2.0.6, fuse-2.7.4-1.el5.rf, hosts are all running CentOS 5.2,
local networks for NFS is gbe, link between uk1 and us1 is tcp 100mb
internet, and disks are all SATA
 
Andy

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 6:41 AM, Andy Knight <Andy.Knight at
ivcapital.com> wrote:
> glusterfs 2.0.6, fuse-2.7.4-1.el5.rf, hosts are all running CentOS 5.2,
> local networks for NFS is gbe, link between uk1 and us1 is tcp 100mb
> internet, and disks are all SATA
Your nodes are separated by a transatlantic link? What's the RTT for
pinging between the hosts? Gluster over WAN doesn't seem to work very
well in our experience (East Coast/West Coast USA).