Hi, actually there is no problem to build a GFS Cluster with some kind of IP Based Storage (gnbd). You can also build a Web server infrastructure ontop of a NFS Server (or NAS Appliance). But it is also a good idea to use a GFS Cluster (maybe diskless shared root) based on a FC Infraystructure if you need performance, scalability and reliability. It is allways the question, what you really need ... Can you describe your requirements for the web services at a more detailed level - Maybe I/O rate - scalability - reliability ? It's normally not the network bandwidth that is the problem, it is the latency. Mark On Friday 11 November 2005 21:03, David Brieck Jr. wrote: > We're planning on building a cluster to handle web operations but > we've run into a dilemma on storage. From all the reading I've done it > appears that the best case would a fibre channel SAN with GFS; however > we'd like to keep the cost down but still retain very reliable > storage. > > In our cost cutting efforts I've come up with an idea that I think > would float, but that our hardware vendor (whose trying to sell us the > SAN) doesn't think is possible. > > I'd like to replace a SAN device with 2 servers clustered together and > connected to an external SCSI array. Only one of the servers would be > accessing the array, the other would just be a standby in case of a > failover. The accessing server would use GNBD and GFS to export the > block device to all clients which of course would run the clients of > GNBD and GFS. > > The documentation seems to imply this is a viable alternative to a SAN > but I'd like to know if anyone is using this type of setup or if there > would be a reason why it wouldn't work properly. I would appreciate > any help since I'm not an expert on this yet. (but should be soon due > to RedHats courses). > > All servers in the cluster will have dual ethernet, etc so hopefully > bandwidth shouldn't be a problem. > > Thanks in advance. > David Brieck > > -- > > Linux-cluster@xxxxxxxxxx > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-cluster -- Gruss / Regards, Dipl.-Ing. Mark Hlawatschek http://www.atix.de/ ** ATIX - Ges. fuer Informationstechnologie und Consulting mbH Einsteinstr. 10 - 85716 Unterschleissheim - Germany -- Linux-cluster@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-cluster
