[ale] distributed network file system

[Jim Kinney]

OK. That makes sense.

I was looking at using gluster or GFS to reuse space on school hard drives
as redundant storage for student work. That seemed feasible as long as they
were running a Linux.

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 1:24 PM, John Heim <john at johnheim.net> wrote:

> From: "Derek Atkins" <warlord at MIT.EDU>
> To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts" <ale at ale.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 8:04 AM
> Subject: Re: [ale] distributed network file system
>
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > "John Heim" <john at johnheim.net> writes:
> >
> >> I would like to set up a distributed network file system in my
> >> department.
> >> There is a dizzying array of possibilities, gfarmfs, ceph, glusterfs,
> >> just
> >> to name a few.
> >>
> >> Needs:
> >> 1. Should work on a large number of small nodes, 100Gb each.
> >> 2. Parallelism & striping.
> >> 3. Prefer debian package, GPL.
> >> 4. Meta data in mysql would be nice.
> >>
> >> Any experience and/or recommendations?
> >
> > What are your requirements for usage of the space?  Are you trying to
> > get a distributed SAN array?  Or are you just trying to get a
> > distributed file space?
> >
> > If the latter you might also want to look at OpenAFS.  It is F/OSS,
> > although it's not GPL.  Oh, and the metadata isn't stored in MySQL.
>
> We have a 2Tb SAN for users to use for files space. But we have about 300
> users so each gets only 6Gb.  That's just not enough for some users.
> Mostly,
> its enough on a long term basis but sometimes they need to generate 50Gb -
> 100Gb of data. We have all kinds of disk space on each users workstation
> but
> they can't get to it. This is deliberate. We don't want them saving files
> where they won't be backed up.  And we want to be able to re-image a
> machine
> at a moment's notice w/o having to have the user back up his stuff.
>
> I got the brilliant idea of using the 100Gb (or so) of free space on each
> workstation for a distributed network file system.  So we'd need to be able
> to wipe out a node w/o losing anything.  I could make sure we copy the data
> off before we re-image a workstation. But an end-user might simply turn
> their workstation off. Whatever we use would have to deal with that.
>
> The mysql thing was just a preference (over postgres). I have nothing
> against other DBMSes. Its just that we already have mysql.
>
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
*
*Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain
at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail.
It won't fatten the dog.
- Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain
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