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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A.2. Server side hardware set-up
1) Prepare two PowerEdge R710 servers (called “active” and “passive”). Configure each server as
follows.
One PERC H700 and 5 local disks each of 146 GB.
Configure 2 disks in RAID 1 with 1 disk designated as the hot spare. This will be used for the
operating system. Configure 2 disks in RAID 0, this will be used as swap.
10 Gigabit Ethernet card OR InfiniBand card in slot 4, a PCI-E x8 slot.
SAS 6 Gbps card in slot 3, a PCI-E x8 slot. This is the card that will connect to the MD3200
storage.
iDRAC enterprise
Dual power supplies
Reference for the PERC H700 storage controller is provided below. The PowerEdge R710 server
might ship from the Dell factory with 2 disks already configured in RAID 1. Insert the additional
3 disks into the server and use this document to add a disk as a hot spare for the RAID 1 setup
and to configure the remaining two disks in RAID 0.
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/Storlink/H700H800/en/UG/PDF/H700H800.pdf
2) Set up a Gigabit Ethernet switch for the private network. Power the gigabit switch from one of the
Power PDUs. You will need at least 6 Ethernet ports on the switch. One port each for:
Ethernet cable from power PDU1
Ethernet cable from power PDU2
iDRAC enterprise from active server
iDRAC enterprise from passive server
NIC1 from active server
NIC1 from passive server
3) Set up two switched power PDUs with at least 3 power ports each.
PDU 1, port 1 for the Gigabit switch for the private network.
PDU 1, port 2 for power supply 1 on active
PDU 1, port 3 for power supply 1 on passive
PDU 2, port 2 for power supply 2 on active
PDU 2, port 3 for power supply 2 on passive
4) Configure the IP of the power PDUs to be on the private network. Connect the Ethernet port of
each PDU to the Gigabit Ethernet private switch.
5) For each R710, cable the onboard NIC1 and iDRAC enterprise port to the Gigabit Ethernet private
switch.
6) For each R710, plug in the two power supplies on the server to each of the two switched power
PDUs.
7) For each R710, set the IP address of the iDRAC Enterprise on the private network.
8) Connect the IB or 10GbE network to the “public” network. This is the network the NFS clients are
connected to.