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Re: Quotas
by Dave Heiland 08 Aug '97

08 Aug '97

>I call a guaranteed space allocation a "reservation". Reservations are >possible, but they do impose more complexity and more processing >overhead. We've had little if any strong pressure for reservations. ... >Applying quotas to an arbitrary subtree is tricky... I agree with keeping things simple. If setting up reservations, or applying quotas to arbitrary trees adds to the complexity of the software too much relative to the number of people requiring it, then the current design of quotas is fine. >I don't know whether this level of detail in our design process is >interesting to people or not, but hopefully it helps explain why quotas >work they way they do. I'd have to say that knowing why things are designed the way they are make a big difference, and its not often that users get the reasons behind decisions that can seem arbitrary from the outside. -- Dave Heiland

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Mixing narrow and wide drives...
by Brian Tao 08 Aug '97

08 Aug '97

Stupid question time... does an F230 allow mixing narrow and wide 4GB drives in one shelf? One drive on our F230 (which uses wide drives) was freaking out the rest of the system, and I replaced it with a spare from our F220 (which uses narrow drives). The F230 didn't like that at all. ;-) I was under the impression that you were allowed to mix narrow and wide drives on a wide bus (as long as the narrow drives were within ID 0 to 7). -- Brian Tao (BT300, taob(a)netcom.ca) "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't"

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Amanda and network appliance machines (fwd)
by Tom Yates 07 Aug '97

07 Aug '97

this one just cropped up on the AMANDA mailing list. any amanda-toaster experts have any light to shed? we use amanda, but not for the toasters. Tom Yates - Unix Chap - The Mathworks, Inc. - +1 (508) 647 7561 MAG#65061 DoD#0135 AMA#461546 1024/CFDFDE39 0C E7 46 60 BB 96 87 05 04 BD FB F8 BB 20 C1 8C "Microsoft (tm) is a single-sofa supplier" ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 07 Aug 1997 15:24:24 -0400 From: Ernie Oporto <ernie_oporto(a)MENTORG.COM> To: amanda-users(a)cs.umd.edu Subject: Amanda and network appliance machines Resent-Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 15:24:41 -0400 (EDT) Resent-From: amanda-users(a)cs.umd.edu Has anyone attempted to do anything with AMANDA and Network Appliance's machines? They're one of the companies we were thinking of buying a server from, but without good AMANDA support, we would probably stick with Auspex. -Ernie -- http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/9276 _____/ ____ / /Ernie "Shokk" Oporto-SysAdmin _____ ____ / \ __ / __ Mentor Graphics Corporation \______/ __ __ \______/ __ \___ __ \___

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Quotas
by dheiland＠lucent.com 07 Aug '97

07 Aug '97

With 4.1c quotas have improved by allowing restrictions on users in a specific tree - which makes me wonder how people are using quotas. One use is clearly limiting space users can use to force them to use space wisely. A more important use seems to be restricting certain areas from growing too large and preventing other areas from running out of space. For instance, you don't want a user directory preventing incoming mail from being written. In this case, what could be useful in addition to an upper limit on directory sizes is having a guaranteed minimum space for a directory. For example, reserving 1 GB for incoming mail regardless of the constraints on other areas. This would add extra complexity and might not even be possible - has anyone else considered this to be possibly useful? Quotas also seem to be a bit confusing in that the /etc/quotas file defines all the quotas, and 'quota on' or 'quota resize' activates the quotas, but you have to create a quota directory via 'quota qtree'. This means you can't just add an existing directory to /etc/quotas and run quota off/on to enforce quotas on it, and that qtrees and entries in /etc/quotas can be out of sync. It seems more sensible just to have the /etc/quotas file and quota on/off/resize. Dave Heiland dheiland(a)lucent.com

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Inconsistent drive ID labels
by Brian Tao 05 Aug '97

05 Aug '97

Does anyone else find the wording of syslog messages confusing? I almost had a small heart attack when I saw this after failing out a marginal drive, thinking that two drives had just died. "Disk 8" and "Data disk 7" are the same thing, and I wish the filer would use one or the either. Mon Aug 4 15:45:27 EDT [raid_disk_admin]: Unload of disk 8 has completed successfully. Mon Aug 4 15:45:27 EDT [raid_stripe_owner]: Read on data disk 7 failed, reverting to degraded mode. -- Brian Tao (BT300, taob(a)netcom.ca) "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't"

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Deleting large file gives "not responding still trying"
by sthaug＠nethelp.no 05 Aug '97

05 Aug '97

We have an F330 which normally functions as a News spool (and works very well, btw). Today I tried storing a large (1.5 GByte) file on the NetApp, and a while later (a few hours) tried to delete the same file. During the delete, I got *lots* of Aug 1 15:37:22 snipp unix: NFS server snapp not responding still trying Aug 1 15:37:22 snipp unix: NFS server snapp ok in the log. As soon as the delete was finished, everything was back to normal again. The NetApp runs 3.1.5 (3.1.5d, I believe), and is connected to the NFS client machine (snipp) via a dedicated 100TX Ethernet. The NFS client machine is an Ultrasparc running Solaris 2.5.1. Anybody seen this before? Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug(a)nethelp.no

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CacheFS vs squid vs harvest vs ...
by alexei＠deepthroat.cimedia.com 03 Aug '97

03 Aug '97

We have a semi-large web-server farm and use NFS on the back-end to distribute content (we have lots of sites running on multiple boxes). The back-end NFS server is doing ok, but it is usually running at about 3000 NFSops with a cpu utilization of 50-70%. Our avg cache age is 4 minutes. We are using a f540 with 256MB of read-cache, and use fddi for the nfs network. Our content is updated throughout the day. But most folks hit the same pages over time. Every page has an advertisement or 2. I see a few different ways of extending the life of the back-end server, and these may involve: - cachefs (on the client) - squid or harvest (as a web cache) Has anybody out there already done such an analysis of caching? We have about 50GB of content. Are there other solutions out there that may also help? We are a homogenous Sun shop. I have used harvest before, but not across virtual hosts. Upgrading to a f630 is an option, but it would probably take forever to move the content (as well as consume the filer). Anybody out ther done testing on any of these pieces? Thanks. Alexei s

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Re: Deleting large file gives "not responding still trying"
by Ketil Kirkerud Elgethun 02 Aug '97

02 Aug '97

sthaug(a)nethelp.no writes: > We have an F330 which normally functions as a News spool (and works > very well, btw). Today I tried storing a large (1.5 GByte) file on > the NetApp, and a while later (a few hours) tried to delete the same > file. During the delete, I got *lots* of > > Aug 1 15:37:22 snipp unix: NFS server snapp not responding still trying > Aug 1 15:37:22 snipp unix: NFS server snapp ok > > in the log. As soon as the delete was finished, everything was back > to normal again. > > The NetApp runs 3.1.5 (3.1.5d, I believe), and is connected to the > NFS client machine (snipp) via a dedicated 100TX Ethernet. The NFS > client machine is an Ultrasparc running Solaris 2.5.1. > > Anybody seen this before? Yes. This is fixed in 3.1.6, if memory serves me. -- ---Ketil Kirkerud Elgethun, Scandinavia Online "Frihed, lighed og en lille en i kaffen"

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NetApp vs. FFP 7000 (was Re: Hello...)
by mer＠world.evansville.net 31 Jul '97

31 Jul '97

I'm following up on a thread from mid-June. You may recall that I asked for assistance deciding between a couple of small NetApps and a Falcon Systems FastFilePro 7000. I've include Andy Watson's response below for context. We made our decision to go with NetApp last week. Two key factors: - NetApp is the market leader and has strong momentum. With NetApp, I'm not concerned about owning an orphaned product, and I expect that the product line will continue to develop rapidly. NetApp's large customer base is a major asset because I feel comfortable that the toasters user community will be a good source of information as well as a point of leverage for ensuring that NetApp is responsive. - NetApp's entry-level price is very low compared to that of the FastFilePro 7000, and upgrades are easy and penalty-free. Our plans have changed a bit -- we're buying an F210 now for a big customer project and the two we originally wanted this fall. Thanks very much everyone for sharing your thoughts with me. -- Marc Rouleau VP and Chief Technology Officer Voice: (812) 479-1700 Fax: (812) 479-3439 World Connection Services, LLC http://www.evansville.net On Jun 13, 4:36pm, Andy Watson wrote: > Marc -- > > Given that no one else has offered you opinions (none that I've > seen on this distribution list, anyway), I thought I ought to > comment. I'll try not to exhibit too much of a NetApp vendor bias. > >> Apologies if this is off the charter -- let me know (gently, please!) >> and I'll desist -- but I'm evaluating dedicated NFS servers and have >> narrowed things down to Network Appliance (F220, qty 2) versus Falcon >> Systems (FastfilePro 7000, qty 1). I must admit that I'm leaning >> toward the 7000 due to its superior expandability and greater >> administrative flexibility (multiple filesystems and RAID sets, ability >> to run old drives via JBOD on the SCSI port). ... > > As I'm sure you are aware, NetApp has made design choices towards > simplification. The goal is not to offer "administrative flexibility" > but instead to provide a dedicated function appliance where admin > is streamlined to a minimal set of tasks. > > For example, unlike a mundane file server that requires the > administrator(s) to load balance among multiple file systems, > and reallocate storage between them, a NetApp filer has a single > file system that can be *software*-partitioned among subtrees > such that space allocation can be managed on-the-fly by simply > editing the tree quotas in /etc/quotas, and where no load-balancing > whatsoever need be attempted. You can export the single file system > as if it were multiple file systems by exporting subtrees with > various permissions and options specified in the /etc/exports file. > >> ... Also, the 7000 tests >> about even with the F540 in various magazine reviews, and NetApp's own >> LADDIS testing shows the F220 to be only half as fast as the F540 (is >> this true in the real world?). > > Well, in at least one magazine review I think it was UNIX REVIEW, > as I recall) a benchmark called "bigdisk" was used, which showed > Falcon's performance as comparable to a NetApp filer. Other than > that I don't recall other reviews where Falcon matched NetApp. > Anyway, in that article, bigdisk exercised the Falcon using NFSv2 > over UDP, because at that time Falcon's software did not support > NFSv3 nor NFS over TCP. NetApp was tested with NFSv3 over TCP. > Running NFS over TCP is known to hurt performance compared to UDP, > but TCP is provided because it is better for WANs and other "lossy" > networks where packet loss can cause heavy retrans overhead. > Anyway, we ran bigdisk internally, using NFSv2 over UDP, and > our performance was significantly better than what that magazine > reported for Falcon. > > On the broader topic of benchmarking, the industry-standard > benchmark of NFS file server performance is SFS (also known as > "LADDIS") from SPEC. SPEC has a peer review process whereby > official results are submitted, and if accepted by SPEC, can > be published in the SPEC Newsletter and on the SPEC website -- > (see http://www.specbench.org/osg/sfs93/results/results.html). > You will find Falcon and NetApp SFS benchmark results at that > site (and in the hardcopy Newsletter, if you have access to it). > NetApp has also published SFS results which have been accepted > by SPEC, but which have been inexplicably delayed in appearing > on the SPEC website. SPEC assures me that they will appear > very soon, probably by early next week. In the meanwhile, you > can see our latest results for our F210, F230, F520, and F630 > filers at http://www.netapp.com/technology/performance.html. > > Falcon has published four results via SPEC, but none of them > are annotated as being for a model "7000", so I'm not sure > what that machine's SFS benchmark results might be. Also, > in 3 out of those 4 tested configurations, Falcon used a > SSD (SolidState Disk) to significantly accelerate their > performance. If the proposed Falcon configuration you are > considering does not include that SSD, then you should ask > to have that added if you want to optimize that system's > performance. On the 4th Falcon configuration for which they > have published SFS results, instead of SSD, they combined > a BBU (Battery Backup Unit) with a Mylex disk controller's > RAM cache to accelerate Write performance. If you are > considering that approach, instead of using SSD, be sure not > to omit the BBU, because otherwise pending Writes (asynchronously > acknowledged to the clients) could be lost in the event of > a power interruption. (NetApp uses battery-backed NVRAM > ((Non-Volatile RAM)) to capture and preserve updates to the > file system, evenin the event of an interruption in power. > > The SPEC results will show you that our filers outperform Falcon's > servers in terms of average response time. This means we provide > faster replies to clients. Also, Falcon has only published results > for one configuration where parity RAID protection was enabled. > That happens to be for a model 9000 system with 62 disks, with > three RAM-caching Mylex controllers, and an SSD. Even so, two > F220s together will present more total ops/s (1213 ops/s each, > or 2426 together) than the large-config Falcon 9000 (2392 ops/s). > Each F220 needed only 14 disks to achieve this performance, > so even two of them together were exercising less than half the > spindles than the high-end Falcon. And with our latest software > release, and the newer F230 filer, the performance has improved > both in terms of faster response time (4.5ms for 1221 ops/s, > compared to the F220's 9.4 ms for 1231 ops/s) and greater max > throughput (1610 ops/s). > > But this is benchmarking numerology, to some extent. You are > wise to ask about realworld performance. We have consistently > found that NetApp filers deliver better performance for actual > application environments than indicated by the SFS benchmark > because the benchmark has a "worst-case" workload, compared > to most application requirements. Also, unlike other vendors > (including Falcon) where the SFS benchmark load is *perfectly* > load-balanced across many file systems, NetApp is benchmarking > with a single file system. Realworld applications depend on > the performance of the individual file system where the target > data resides. It is rare to find an individual application that > is actively exercising data stored in multiple file systems. > > I've written a paper which goes into greater detail on this > topic: "Interpreting SPEC SFS ('LADDIS') Benchmark Results" > (http://www.netapp.com/technology/level3/3010.html). It doesn't > specifically mention Falcon, but I think you will find it useful > in the analysis of your requirements and the comparison of NetApp > filer performance versus benchmark results for multiple-file system > configurations such as Falcon's. > >> On the other hand, NetApp tells me that the highly random nature of my >> traffic -- typical ISP work including email, USENET news, and webservers -- >> should point me toward multiple servers to maximize main memory cache hits. >> They say that the main memory cache on the 7000 will become worthless as I >> expand storage and that performance will drop off. I don't have a good >> feel for the importance of main memory cache here -- the 7000 uses hardware >> RAID controllers with onboard cache, so it seems like it would be less >> important to the Falcon product than it is to the NetApp line. But I must >> admit that NetApp's larger installed base -- 1000's versus 100's of >> systems -- makes it a safer choice on the surface. > > On the above topic, you should check out Karl Swartz's paper: > "The Brave Little Toaster Meets Usenet" (a USENIX LISA paper -- > see http://www.netapp.com/technology/level3/brave.html). > > In general, for large data sets and the highly randomized loads seen > by growing ISPs, it is futile to try to solve your I/O problems with > larger caches. Let's say you have 20 GB of data that is being accessed > by a large population of diverse users, such that there is relatively > little likelihood of data re-use from the cache. If even only 25% of > that 20-GB is exercised, then you would need 4 GB RAM, and you'd > merely fill it with data retrieved only to never need it again, > as the next 4-GB of different data flows through the cache over the > next equivalent time interval. > > So what you really need to focus on is disk subsystem performance. > And that's where we excel. Note that we have published all our > benchmark results with relatively small disk complements, giving > us the best per-disk (and per-file-system) performance results > in the industry. > > >Anyone care to share his/her thoughts on this topic? > > Well, I hope this helped. I tried to provide as much relevant > information as I could, with references, and to avoid spouting > unsubstantiated opinions. > > Good luck in your exploration of alternatives! > > -- Andy > > Andy Watson > Director, Technical Marketing watson(a)netapp.com > Network Appliance +1 408 367 3220 voice > 2770 San Tomas Expressway +1 408 367 3151 fax > Santa Clara, CA 95051 <http://www.netapp.com/> > > "It's really stupid to be an intellectual when you're young. > You should be an intellectual when you're a hundred years old > and can't feel anything anymore." > -- a character in Bruce Sterling's novel, HOLY FIRE > > > >

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Net App and databases
by Tim & Patty Lewis 31 Jul '97

31 Jul '97

Is anyone out there using their NetAPP to house Oracle, Informix or Sybase databases? If so what have been the results? Any feedback on this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Tim Lewis

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