(Illustration by Gaich Muramatsu)
I presently have several web/app servers accessing a common NFS server. Instead of setting up a replicated/failover NFS server and using a Heartbeat/DRBD solution, I'd rather save the $$ and replace the NFS server with a single CODA server (IBM xSeries, Dual PIII, 2Gb RAM, RAID1 SCSI). My primary concerns are with regards to disconnected operation, stability, and robustness. 1) Disconnected Operation: If the CODA server dies (or I reboot it), will the client machines still keep working off their locally cached copies of the files? Will the client have a complete mirror of the files cached locally, or only the ones already accessed by the webserver? What if a rarely hit HTML page is requested for the first time when the CODA server is unavailable? When the CODA server comes back online, are the cached files still available to the web server while CODA checks for updates? 2) Stability: I see this asked alot in the archives, and there are always replies along the lines of, "Yes, but only in this XYZ configuration." So I'll ask about this particular scenario: A Read-Only CODA server and 1-8 high power web and application servers pushing content at the rate of 8-15Mbps and growing. "Stability" can be defined as an extremely rare number of sync errors, or ones that can be automatically recovered from. This is a production environment which should be somewhat self mending. I shouldn't have to run integrity checks every day for small syncing errors or the like. 3) Robustness: How efficient is a CODA solution? I played with it back in October of last year, and my two 650Mhz Athlon machines with 256Mb RAM were pushed hard under only moderate load when running as both RW client/servers. Is a dedicated RO server with dedicated clients going to utilize processor and memory resources more efficiently? I'd like the server to function in other capacities as well (monitoring, low-traffic MySQL server), so even with 2Gb memory, I see CODA requiring alot of RAM just for itself. In this scenario, do the members of this list see any major advantages of using CODA as it stands presently (6.0.1?), over the current version of OpenAFS (1.2.9a) on a RedHat 9 machine? Since I am only talking Read-Only operation, would InterMezzo make any sense? In a RW environment, it's terribly buggy and not suitable for production use. I thank all of you in advance for your replies. -Ken This message is intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is PRIVILEGED and CONFIDENTIAL and is covered by Mutual Non Disclosure Agreements, if applicable. If you are not the intended recipient, dissemination of this communication is prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please erase all copies of the message and its attachments and notify the sender immediately.Received on 2003-07-17 11:37:50