toasters December 1999

toasters@lists.teaparty.net

100 participants
81 discussions

experiences with clustering and snapmirror
by Joe Gross 07 Dec '99

07 Dec '99

We're currently evaluating several solutions for hosting initially about 1TB but will probably grow to several times that over the next 18 months. We already have a small 740 happily chugging away for the past 4 months and have been extremely happy with it. The configuration we're considering is clustering two F760s. Each filer will serve its own data and also be physically connected to the disks that the other filer serves. From what I understand this is the standard clustering configuration. We would plan to add more filers in pairs as we outgrow the initial pair. The main NFS clients would be bunch of suns that run as application servers. They'll take requests, munge data and return results back to other parts of the site. All the application servers would be able to see all the data. Since the application servers don't hold any data they would all be identical (and expendable.) In addition, we're considering adding a second raid volume to each filer and using snapmirror against the other filer's primary volume. This would protect us against the possibility of one of the primary raid devices having a catastrophic failure. We'd run snapmirror every five minutes or so to keep the secondary updated. Each filer would have a primary and secondary ethernet interface connected to different edge devices on a switched GB network. This would assure that if a network edge device went down the filer would still be able to reach the backbone. Backups would happen with traditional methods using a snapshot of the mirror copy. Here's a cheap ascii picture of what I poorly described above: +---------------+ +---------------+ |snapmirror of | |snapmirror of | |filer 2 primary| |filer 1 primary| +---------------+ +---------------+ | | | +-------+ | | +-------|filer 1|-------+ | | | |primary| | | +-------+ | disks | +-------+ gb ether---| | +-------+ | |---gb ether |filer 1| |filer 2| gb ether---| | | |---gb ether +-------+ +-------+ +-------+ | |filer 2| | +--------|primary|--------+ | disks | +-------+ gb ether gb ether gb ether gb ether gb ether gb ether | | | | | | +------+ +------+ +------+ +------+ +------+ +------+ | app | | app | | app | | app | | app | | app | |server| |server| |server| |server| |server| |server| +------+ +------+ +------+ +------+ +------+ +------+ I'm looking for any experiences you have had with this or any subset of the picture. Specifically, I'd like to hear experiences about - Clustering: Does it work for you? Have you had a filer die and had the secondary take over? Have you had a filer die and the secondary NOT take over? - Snapmirror: Do you use it? How does frequent mirroring affect performance of both the sending and receiving systems? Have you had any consistency or other problems with it? Can you take snapshots of the receiving disk? - Multiple paths to the network. Can you aggregate bandwidth through multiple gigabit connections to the same network? What about setting one interface as the primary and the other as a secondary? - WAFL: Good or bad things to say about the filesystem. - NFS issues. NFS is famous for problems with lockups, locking problems, stuck mounts, etc. We won't be doing any locking over NFS mounts and will be using whatever version of solaris is recommended at the time. Anything good or bad that can be said about the combination of a netapp and sun. Any other information or advice regarding this arrangement would, of course, be welcome. This is being considered as an alternative to the traditional method of hanging a RAID off each server but there are still some big hangups about NFS in general. Good (or bad) experiences regarding this would be appreciated. Thanks for reading this far and thanks in advance for any knowledge you can pass on. Joe Gross

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test
by Michael Linett 06 Dec '99

06 Dec '99

-- Michael Linett - President Mike(a)zerowait.com * http://www.zerowait.com PH 302.266.9408 FX 302.738.4302 http://www.loadbalancing.net - The Source for information on Load Balancing Technology http://www.nas-san.com - Information on Network Attached Storage and Storage Area Networks

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RE: RE: HP OmniBack Backup Filer on NT DLT
by Benn, Paul 03 Dec '99

03 Dec '99

I personally have not used OmniBack but I did publish a white paper on the subject of NT based backup of filers. At the very least, it may give you some ideas. http://www.netapp.com/tech_library/3052.html Regards, Paul Benn Network Appliance -----Original Message----- From: Dave Mills [mailto:davem@cypress-systems.com] Sent: Friday, December 03, 1999 10:11 AM To: toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: RE:RE: HP OmniBack Backup Filer on NT DLT We are new to filers. We currently have several DLT drives on NT servers which are OmniBack tape agents. We are currently getting ready to install a F720. Has anyone used OnmiBack on NT to backup via the CIFS on a filer? I know we would have to snapshot manually. Any other drawbacks or problems? Dave Mills Cypress Systems

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RE:RE: HP OmniBack Backup Filer on NT DLT
by Dave Mills 03 Dec '99

03 Dec '99

We are new to filers. We currently have several DLT drives on NT servers which are OmniBack tape agents. We are currently getting ready to install a F720. Has anyone used OnmiBack on NT to backup via the CIFS on a filer? I know we would have to snapshot manually. Any other drawbacks or problems? Dave Mills Cypress Systems

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OOps
by Jay Orr 02 Dec '99

02 Dec '99

Ignore last post -- our mail queue is slow and I just got the messages previously posted. Thanks for addressing the concern, Netapps! ----------- Jay Orr Systems Administrator Fujitsu Nexion Inc. St. Louis, MO

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Netapp Web Page
by Jay Orr 02 Dec '99

02 Dec '99

Had anyone heard if Netapp is planning to make their support page LYNX / text browser compliant?? I see they revamped their page, and I remember the thread about how netapps support page requires javascript, so no text-based browsers work (so if you working off of a VT term, your SOL). Has this question been resolved at Netapps? Is the revamp still using javascript a way of saying they could care less about this issue? ----------- Jay Orr Systems Administrator Fujitsu Nexion Inc. St. Louis, MO

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FW: FTP uploads from the UK (fwd)
by Nguyen, Alan 02 Dec '99

02 Dec '99

To All, First, I must apologize for NetApp's poor FTP site performance. The responsibility for this in my group. The situation is our internet connection is highly-utilized and thus your access to our FTP site is affected by this. Actions have been taken to increase internet bandwidth in the next few weeks. However, despite this, it will be superseded by our new FTP implementation. We have designed a new FTP site to improve security, system management, increase internet bandwidth/presence (i.e. ISP hosted site), and system redundancy. Because our current infrastructure is very out-dated, we have taken the "big-bang" approach rather than making incremental improvements. In a little more detail, our new FTP site is at a web-hosted site with 100MB bandwidth capacity vs current T1, and is configured with two fail-over dual-processor Unix systems with cluster fail-over (F760) Filer pair for storage. In short, the new site is very robust and will scale to meet to our customers' needs. What has been done thus far? Contract has been signed with new web-hosting site. Networking infrastructure is in place. Programming is complete for account and directory management. The new systems are racked at the new web-hosted site. As I type this, we are plugging in the cables for the new systems. What's the schedule? In the next two days, we will perform internal/external FTP tests. On Monday (Dec 6th), we will start live tests with customers assuming everything goes well this week. After which, the new site will go live. I will announce to this list when we are live. If you have any questions, please direct them to me anguyen(a)netapp.com <mailto:anguyen@netapp.com> or reply to this list as I will be joining this list soon. Again, thank you for your patience. Alan Nguyen Network Appliance Mgr., IT Server Operations

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RE: User Quotas in CIFS Environment
by Plawner, Marom 02 Dec '99

02 Dec '99

I realize that the responses I received on this thread weren't posted to the group, so I'll give a quick overview of the e-mail's I received: Problem that users from the NT domain must be migrated into the /etc/passwd file (using the dos based on beta GUI based tool) to be able to give a users@tree quota. Responses: This is not unique to my system. It is in fact built this way. I've been told that this should be changed in an upcoming release (less than 12 months, hopefully). Quote, "The quota system within WAFL needs to be wired to the NTFS metadata that is maintained in the NTFS and MIXED file system styles. Currently it is only wired to the UNIX notion of ownership, which is why the UNIX<->NT user mappings are currently necessary to make user and group quotas work for Windows users." My Reaction: 12 months!!!! Problem: An NT based NIS server and make the NetApp a client. Anyone know of one? Responses: Good idea, nope, we don't. Problem: The DOS based migration tool crashes, can someone at NetApp fix it? Response: Nope. We don't even have the source, and we don't support it. My Reaction: This is a BAD answer. The NetApp filer provides a broken functionality (see first problem above), and the only interim solution isn't supported. Problem: Maybe the GUI version of the migration tool has hidden command line switches which can make it scriptable? Response: Nope. Why don't you just write your own script automatically update your /etc/passwd file? My Reaction: I bought the NetApp Filer since it's supposed to be a "black box" (ok, blue). The concept of the filer is that it is a simple, closed system that you just plug in a go with. If I wanted a system which I have to start building tools for, I'd download Linux for free and do it myself. (Or run Novell, or suffer with speed of NT.) Speed wasn't the issue, NetApp people... simplicity was. I don't need "just go and program it yourself" answers. I bought this for a CIFS environment, not NFS. I don't come from the "just build it in Perl" side of the tracks. Since you offer more functionality, you just understand your customer based and how the NT System Admins are different than the Unix System Admins. Problem: Maybe the wafl.nt_user.default option is connected? Response: No, read the man page. My Reaction: Right, good idea. Thanks to all of your responses. For those of you wanting to go into CIFS or using CIFS and wanting to go into quotas, I was given a suggestion to just limit the size of the /users folder. In theory it isn't a bad idea, but I'll tell you from the point of view of a company with about 4,000 people using the filer as a home directory, people will use it all up and fast! Not putting a quota won't work. - Marom

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RE: NOW update?
by Davis, Barry 02 Dec '99

02 Dec '99

We have a project scheduled for completion at the end of December to allow customers with text based browsers to download software from the Web. This is in direct response to issue discussed 6 weeks ago regarding customers who have filers in remote locations or colo cages where no graphics console is available. Details will come out mid-December about this new location and how to use it. -----Original Message----- From: Pete Ehlke [mailto:pde@listserv.music.sony.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 1999 12:14 PM To: toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: NOW update? Folks: Six weeks or so ago, there was extensive discussion here about the use of javascript on NOW, and the inability of people in colo cages to get OnTap updates when no craphics capable console is available. NetApp made a fair bit of noise about wanting to address the issue, but since that time, the silence has been deafening. What's happening? -P. -- Pete Ehlke Sys Admin type @ Sony Music entertainment "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." -- Ian Fleming

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RE: FC-AL: Onboard vs. PCI Adapter Card
by Norman, Paul 01 Dec '99

01 Dec '99

> -----Original Message----- > From: Jay Soffian [mailto:jay@cimedia.com] > Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 1999 12:54 PM > To: paul.norman(a)netapp.com > Cc: toasters(a)mathworks.com > Subject: Re: FC-AL: Onboard vs. PCI Adapter Card > > > "Paul" == Norman, Paul <paul.norman(a)netapp.com> writes: > > Paul> Over the last couple days, there has been some discussion > Paul> about on-board FC-AL in our filers. This summer, NetApp > ... > Paul> For more information, or if you have concerns about your > Paul> system, contact Network Appliance customer support. There > Paul> will also be more technical information posted on the NOW > Paul> site before the end of the day tomorrow. > > This information has yet to show up on NOW. > Sorry, I should have posted a pointer. Its been up for a while but it isn't that easy to find. Its in the Tip & Tech section under Knowledge Base, Its #700. The URL is http://now.netapp.com/NOW/knowledge/contents/TIP/TIP_700.shtml but you'll have to login first before you can get to this URL. You can find it with search off the Knowledge Base page, at the bottom. Select the "Tip & Tech" type and then enter "700" for the ID. > j. > -- > Jay Soffian <jay(a)cimedia.com> UNIX > Systems Engineer > 404.572.1941 Cox > Interactive Media >

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toasters December 1999