[Linux-cluster] RHCS Coraid/ATAoe compatibility

[Ramon van Alteren]

Franco Martin Bladilo wrote:
> We are considering the option to build a 4 node HA cluster using RHCS 
> and Coraid products (SR1521). ATAoE seems to be the most cost 
> effective solution for our case and I was wondering if there are any 
> comments/ feedback for such configuration.
We're extensively using gfs + coraid 1521's in our setup.
Currently running 3 5-node clusters with 2 - 5 coraid devices attached.

You should not expect the same performance from gfs over AoE as listed 
in the coraid docs.
Depending on the model version you will not get better performance by 
enabling the secondary nic on the coraid devices, rather the opposite.
They claim to have solved this with their newer models but I haven't 
tested yet.

Make sure you use the coraid supplied AoE drivers, performance is much 
better than the in-kernel ones.
Apart from that, install the cec utility, it allows you to login on the 
coraids remotely and thus enables monitoring of raid arrays by a NMS of 
your choice

On the whole we are reasonable statisfied with the solution we managed 
to build on top of gfs and coraids.
It certainly is cost-effective.
> Is the quorum partition issue (shared concurrent access) still a 
> limitation for these appliances? Can these "service" partitions be 
> formatted using GFS? Any other workarounds?
Can't comment, we use the dlm + fencing via APC powerbars.

Regards,

Ramon van Alteren