3.1.2 MxFS-Linux Administration Guide

Introduction

Matrix Server and the Matrix File Serving Solution Pack for Linux

(MxFS-Linux, or MxFS) provide scalability and high availability for the

Network File System (NFS), which is commonly used on

UNIX and Linux

systems to share files remotely.

MxFS Features

MxFS provides the following features:

• Scalable NFS client connectivity. Over multiple NFS servers sharing

the same filesystems, MxFS supports a linearly increasing client

connection load as similarly configured servers are added to the

cluster. A 16-node cluster, serving the same filesystems via NFS, can

support 16 times more NFS clients (with similar workloads and the

same performance) than a single server. A price advantage is gained

by using commodity-level Intel-based servers instead of larger SMP

(4-way or 8-way) servers or larger proprietary filers to accommodate

scaling client connectivity demands.

• Scalable NFS performance. With multiple NFS servers serving the

same filesystems and with appropriate client balancing among the

servers, MxFS supports linearly increasing NFS performance. A

16-node NFS file-serving cluster provides nearly 16 times the

performance results over a single NFS server for the same filesystems,

up to the limit of the shared storage bandwidth.