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Dell HPC Lustre Storage solution with Mellanox Infiniband EDR
Figure 3: Dell PowerEdge R730
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3.1 Management Server
The Intel Manager Server is a single server connected to the Metadata servers and Object Storage
servers via an internal 1GbE network.
The management server is responsible for user interaction, as well as systems health management and
basic monitoring data collected and provided via an interactive web GUI console, the Intel Manager for
Lustre. All management and administration access to the Dell HPC Lustre Storage will be conducted
through this server. While the management server is responsible for collecting Lustre file system
related data and provides management for the solution, it does not play an active operational role in
the Lustre file system or the data path itself.
The Intel Manager for Lustre (IML) GUI removes complexities from the installation process, minimizing
time to deploy and configure the Lustre system. It also automates the monitoring of the health and
performance of the different components. The decrease in time and effort for deployment and
configuration speeds up the general preparations for production use. The automation of the monitoring
provides a better service to end users without increasing the burden for system administrators. In
addition, the solution provides tools that help troubleshoot problems related to performance of the file
system. Finally, the monitoring tools ability of keeping historical information, allow for better planning
for expansion, maintenance and upgrades of the storage appliance.
3.2 Metadata Servers
The Metadata Server pair, shown in Figure 4, is comprised of two Dell PowerEdge 730 servers
configured as an active/passive highly available cluster. Each server is directly attached to a single Dell
PowerVault MD3420 storage array housing the Lustre MDT and MGT. The Dell PowerVault MD3420 is
fully populated with 24 – 300GB, 15K RPM, 2.5” near-line SAS drives configured in a 22 disks RAID10
with 2 hot spares. In this Metadata Target (MDT), the solution provides about 3TB of space for file
system metadata. The MDS is responsible for handling file and directory requests and routing tasks to
the appropriate Object Storage Targets for fulfillment. With a single MDT of this size, the maximum
number of files that can be served will be in excess of 1.6 billion. In this solution, storage requests are
handled across LNet by a single Infiniband EDR connection.