White Papers
Table Of Contents
- Executive Summary (updated May 2011)
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Dell NFS Storage Solution Technical Overview
- 3. NFS Storage Solution with High Availability
- 4. Evaluation
- 5. Performance Benchmark Results (updated May 2011)
- 6. Comparison of the NSS Solution Offerings
- 7. Conclusion
- 8. References
- Appendix A: NSS-HA Recipe (updated May 2011)
- A.1. Pre-install preparation
- A.2. Server side hardware set-up
- A.3. Initial software configuration on each PowerEdge R710
- A.4. Performance tuning on the server
- A.5. Storage hardware set-up
- A.6. Storage Configuration
- A.7. NSS HA Cluster setup
- A.8. Quick test of HA set-up
- A.9. Useful commands and references
- A.10. Performance tuning on clients (updated May 2011)
- A.11. Example scripts and configuration files
- Appendix B: Medium to Large Configuration Upgrade
- Appendix C: Benchmarks and Test Tools
Dell HPC NFS Storage Solution - High Availability Configurations
Page 12
FAILURE TYPE MECHANISM TO HANDLE FAILURE
Private switch failure Cluster service continues on the active server. If there is an
additional component failure, service is stopped and system
administrator intervention required.
Heartbeat network
interface failure
Monitored by the cluster service. Service fails over to passive
server.
RAID controller failure
on MD3200 storage
array
Dual controllers in MD3200. The second controller handles all data
requests. Performance may be degraded but functionality is not
impacted.
3.5. NSS-HA Solution Configurations
The NSS-HA solution is available in two configurations – Medium and Large. The Medium
configuration provides 40TB of usable storage, while the Large configuration scales to 80TB of
usable storage.
Both configurations consist of a pair of PowerEdge R710 servers connected to a single PowerVault
MD3200 storage array. The Medium and Large configurations differ only in the capacity of storage.
The Medium configuration uses one PowerVault MD1200 expansion array to extend the MD3200
while the Large configuration uses three MD1200 arrays. Figure 3 shows the Large configuration;
Figure 5 shows the Medium configuration. Appendix A: NSS-HA contains detailed instructions on
setting up a Medium or a Large configuration.
Figure 5 - NSS-HA Medium Storage Configuration
3.6. Upgrade from Medium Configuration to Large Configuration
The NSS-HA architecture described in this white paper and the design of the PowerVault storage
arrays makes it easy to upgrade a Medium NSS-HA configuration to a Large NSS-HA configuration.
The upgrade process involves addition of two PowerVault MD1200 storage arrays to the NSS-HA
Medium cluster. The new storage arrays must be configured to create virtual disks. The cluster
services, switches and configuration remain the same.