MD3000i / gfs with RHEL5

[Billinghurst, David (RTATECH)]

I need to replace a PE2850 that is acting as the NFS server in a small
linux network used for computational modelling.  The clients are half a
dozen PE1850s and PE1950s running RHEL 3/4/5 on a gigabit Ethernet LAN.
Files are backed up using EMC Networker to 2 LTO2 tape drives.

At present we have around 1 GB of user files and the demand is roughly
doubling each year.  We think that 4-8 GB capacity, perhaps installed
incrementally, should be sufficient for 3 to 4 years.  The performance
of the existing server is adequate but it is running out of capacity and
reaching end of life.  

We were considering a direct attached storage enclosure such as a
PowerEdge MD1000 hanging of a 1950 or 2950.  After some research we are
now thinking about an iSCSI enclosure, eg MD3000i, with a GFS file
system.

Sorry for these basic questions.  As far as I can tell:

1) The GFS file system manages the shared access to the resource.

2) The use of the Distributed Lock Manager in GFS means that the clients
of the iSCSI enclosure are equal.  There is no master controller.

3) Performance should be broadly comparable to (or better than) an NFS
server over gigabit Ethernet.

4) mounted iSCSI filesystems can be exported using NFS and samba


Does anyone have any experience with this sort of setup?  I have read
though the manuals and it doesn't seem too hard to set up (assuming it
all works as advertised).

	David


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