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
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Table 4 - NSS-HA Firmware and Driver Configuration Details
FIRMWARE AND DRIVERS
PowerEdge R710 BIOS 2.2.10
PowerEdge R710 iDRAC 1.54
InfiniBand firmware 2.8.00
InfiniBand driver Mellanox OFED 1.5.1
10 Gigabit Ethernet driver ixgbe 2.0.44-k2
PERC H700 firmware 12.10.0-0025
PERC H700 driver megaraid_sas 00.00.04.17-RH1
6Gbps SAS firmware 07.01.33.00
6Gbps SAS driver mpt2sas 01.101.06.00
Table 5 - NSS-HA Client Configuration Details
CLIENTS / HPC COMPUTE CLUSTER
Clients 64 PowerEdge R410 compute nodes
InfiniBand Mellanox ConnectX-2 QDR HCAs
Mellanox OFED 1.5.1
InfiniBand
fabric
All clients connected to a single large port count InfiniBand switch.
Both R710 NSS-HA servers also connected to the InfiniBand switch.
Ethernet Onboard 1 GbE Broadcom 5716 network adapter.
bnx2 driver v2.0.8e
Ethernet
fabric
Two sets of 32 compute nodes connected to two PowerConnect 6248 Gigabit
Ethernet switch.
Both PowerConnect 6248 switches uplinked to a 10GbE PowerConnect 8024 switch.
Both R710 NSS-HA servers connected directly to the PowerConnect 8024 switch.
Flow control was disabled on the PowerConnect 8024 switch and two PowerConnect
6248 switches.
4.3. Design Choices that Impact Functionality and Performance
The HA cluster configuration includes several design choices that impact functionality and
performance. These choices are described in this section. Details on configuring an NSS-HA solution
are provided in Appendix A: NSS-HA .
Storage array configuration
1) Storage arrays are configured with twelve 2TB NearLine SAS disks. The 3.5” 2TB disks provide
large capacity at a cost-effective price point.