Stefano Pini wrote:> Hi guys,
> we are proposing a customer a couple of X4500 (24 Tb) used as NAS
> (i.e. NFS server).
> Both server will contain the same files and should be accessed by
> different clients at the same time (i.e. they should be both active)
> So we need to guarantee that both x4500 contain the same files:
> We could simply copy the contents on both x4500 , which is an option
> because the "new files" are in a limited number and rate , but we
> would really like to use ZFS send & receive commands:
>
> AFAIK the commands works fine but generally speaking are there any
> known limitations ?
zfs send/receive work on snapshots, not live data.
AVS can replicate ZFS live data, but works in an active/passive
mode for ZFS: the recipient ZFS server will not be accessing the
data via ZFS from the local replicant live.
> And, in detail , it is not clear if the receiving ZFS file system
> could be used regularly while it is in "receiving mode":
> in poor words is it possible to read and export in nfs, files from
> a ZFS file system while it is receiving update from another ZFS send ?
>
> Clearly until the new updates are received and applied the old copy
> would be used
>
If your solution requires simultaneous access of the same files
hosted by different servers without shared storage, then you are
describing a distributed or parallel file system, not ZFS. If those
are the requirements, then perhaps Lustre or NFS v4.1 is a better
solution.
If the solution requires high availability using replication, then a
Solaris Cluster Geo Edition with AVS is a viable option.
-- richard