If you're looking for common storage to be shared and accessed among all the virtual machines, then an NFS farm might be what you're looking for; maybe it's unnecessary, though. I have a GFS storage cluster where four machines export the same data to user land. Actually, I have one server handling all the user space NFS needs (about 50 clients), and it isn't even breathing hard. I have two other NFS servers facing an HPC cluster with 300 client machines. I also have a Samba server serving out all this same data to user land, too, and it is underchallenged as well, with perhaps 100 clients. So, depending on how much traffic you would need to sustain, it may not even require a cluster of NFS servers to achieve your goals. If that's what you need, though, then a homebrwed NAS solution where the data is stored on a clustered filesystem is certainly an option worth considering.
2008/7/1 Leandro Dardini <l.dardini@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
I am running a home-brew NAS Cluster for a medium sized ISP. It is run with a pair of Dell PowerEdge 2900 with 1 Terabyte of filesystem exported via NFS to 4 nodes running apache, exim and imap/pop3 services. Filesystem is made on top of drbd in a active/backup setup with heartbeat. Performance are good, but can be better with more memory on nfs node and faster disks.
I don't know VMware very well, but I run other virtualization solutions, like QEMU. Do you plan to mount the NFS from inside the virtual machine or create a virtual disk on an exported NFS filesystem?
Leandro
-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: linux-cluster-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx per conto di Stephen Nelson-Smith
Inviato: lun 30/06/2008 23.56
A: linux clustering
Oggetto: Homebrew NAS Cluster
Hi all,
I'm in the process of setting up a virtualisation farm which will have
50-60 virtual machines, running a wide range of web, application and
database applications, all on top of vmware vi3.
My budget won't stretch to a commercial NAS solution, so it's either a
SAN, which could get complicated and hard to manage with so many
nodes, or a home-brew NAS solution.
Has anyone done this, on the list? I'm wondering what the catch is?
I'm thinking all I need to do is run NFS on top of a clustered
filesystem, and export to ESX.
I could use some pointers, gotchas, ideas and experiences.
Thanks!
S.
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