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    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">Hi Salvatore,<br>
      <br>
      GSS and GPFS systems are different beasts.<br>
      <br>
      In a traditional GPFS configuration I would expect any NSD server
      to write to any/all LUN's that it can see as a local disk
      providing it's part of the same FS.<br>
      <br>
      In GSS there is effectively a software RAID level added on top of
      the disks, with this I would expect only the RG owner to write
      down to the vdisk.<br>
      <br>
      As for corruption, GPFS uses a token system to manage access to
      LUN's, Metadata, etc.<br>
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        <p>
          Kind Regards,
        </p>
        <p>
          <span class="signame">Laurence Horrocks-Barlow</span> <br>
          <span class="sigtitle">Linux Systems Software Engineer</span>
          <br>
          <span class="sigcompany">OCF plc</span> <br>
        </p>
        <p>
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            (0)114 257 2200</span> <br>
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            (0)114 257 0022</span> <br>
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              href="http://www.ocf.co.uk">www.ocf.co.uk</a></span> <br>
          <span class="sighead">Blog:</span> <span class="sigvalue"><a
              href="http://blog.ocf.co.uk">blog.ocf.co.uk</a></span> <br>
          <span class="sighead">Twitter:</span> <span class="sigvalue"><a
              href="http://twitter.com/#%21/ocfplc">@ocfplc</a></span> <br>
        </p>
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          <p>
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            Registered
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      </div>
      On 11/05/2014 10:33 AM, Salvatore Di Nardo wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote cite="mid:5459FD15.3070105@ebi.ac.uk" type="cite">
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      I understand that my test its a bit particular because the client
      was also one of the servers.<br>
      Usually clients don't have direct access to the storages, but
      still it made think, hot the things are supposed to work.<br>
      <br>
      For example i did another test with 3 dd's, one each server. All
      the servers was writing to all the luns. <br>
      In other words a lun was accessed in parallel by 3 servers. <br>
      <br>
      Its that a problem, or gpfs manage properly the concurrency and
      avoid data corruption? <br>
      I'm asking because i was not expecting a server to write to an NSD
      he doesn't own, even if its locally available. <br>
      I thought that the general availablity was for failover, not for
      parallel access.<br>
      <br>
      <br>
      Regards,<br>
      Salvatore<br>
      <br>
      <br>
      <br>
      <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 05/11/14 10:22, Vic Cornell wrote:<br>
      </div>
      <blockquote
        cite="mid:3F74C441-C25D-4F19-AD05-04AD897A08D3@gmail.com"
        type="cite">
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        Hi Salvatore,
        <div class=""><br class="">
        </div>
        <div class="">If you are doing the IO on the NSD server itself
          and it can see all of the NSDs it will use its "local” access
          to write to the LUNS.</div>
        <div class=""><br class="">
        </div>
        <div class="">You need some GPFS clients to see the workload
          spread across all of the NSD servers.</div>
        <div class=""><br class="">
        </div>
        <div class="">Vic</div>
        <div class=""><br class="">
          <div class=""><br class="">
          </div>
          <div class=""><br class="">
            <div>
              <blockquote type="cite" class="">
                <div class="">On 5 Nov 2014, at 10:15, Salvatore Di
                  Nardo <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
                    href="mailto:sdinardo@ebi.ac.uk" class="">sdinardo@ebi.ac.uk</a>>

                  wrote:</div>
                <br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
                <div class="">
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                  <div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class=""> <font
                      class="" size="-1">Hello again,<br class="">
                      to understand better GPFS, recently i build up an
                      test gpfs cluster using some old hardware that was
                      going to be retired. THe storage was SAN devices,
                      so instead to use native raids I went for the old
                      school gpfs. the configuration is basically:<br
                        class="">
                      <br class="">
                      3x servers <br class="">
                      3x san storages<br class="">
                      2x san switches<br class="">
                      <br class="">
                      I did no zoning, so all the servers can see all
                      the LUNs, but on nsd creation I gave each LUN a
                      primary, secondary and third server. with the
                      following rule:<br class="">
                      <br class="">
                    </font>
                    <table class="" border="1" cellpadding="2"
                      cellspacing="2" width="80%">
                      <tbody class="">
                        <tr class="">
                          <td class="" valign="top"><font class=""
                              size="-1">STORAGE</font><br class="">
                          </td>
                          <td class="" valign="top">primary<br class="">
                          </td>
                          <td class="" valign="top">secondary<br
                              class="">
                          </td>
                          <td class="" valign="top">tertiary<br class="">
                          </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="">
                          <td class="" valign="top">storage1<br class="">
                          </td>
                          <td class="" valign="top">server1<br class="">
                          </td>
                          <td class="" valign="top">server2</td>
                          <td class="" valign="top">server3</td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="">
                          <td class="" valign="top">storage2</td>
                          <td class="" valign="top">server2</td>
                          <td class="" valign="top">server3</td>
                          <td class="" valign="top">server1</td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="">
                          <td class="" valign="top">storage3</td>
                          <td class="" valign="top">server3</td>
                          <td class="" valign="top">server1</td>
                          <td class="" valign="top">server2</td>
                        </tr>
                      </tbody>
                    </table>
                    <font class="" size="-1"><br class="">
                      <br class="">
                      looking at the mmcrnsd, it was my understanding
                      that the primary server is the one that wrote on
                      the NSD unless it fails, then the following server
                      take the ownership of the lun.<br class="">
                      <br class="">
                      Now come the question: <br class="">
                      when i did from server 1 a dd surprisingly i
                      discovered that server1 was writing to all the
                      luns. the other 2 server was doing nothing. this
                      behaviour surprises me because on GSS only the RG
                      owner can write, so one server "ask" the other
                      server to write to his own RG's.In fact on GSS can
                      be seen a lot of ETH traffic and io/s on each
                      server. While i understand that the situation it's
                      different I'm puzzled about the fact that all the
                      servers seems able to write to all the luns. <br
                        class="">
                      <br class="">
                      SAN deviced usually should be connected to one
                      server only, as paralled access could create data
                      corruption. In environments where you connect a
                      SAN to multiple servers ( example VMWARE cloud)
                      its softeware task to avoid data overwriting
                      between server ( and data corruption ).<br
                        class="">
                      <br class="">
                      Honestly, what  i was expecting is: server1
                      writing on his own luns, and data traffic (
                      ethernet) to the other 2 server , basically asking
                      <b class="">them</b> to write on the other luns. I
                      dont know if this behaviour its normal or not. I
                      triied to find a documentation about that, but
                      could not find any.<br class="">
                      <br class="">
                      Could somebody  tell me if this <u class=""><i
                          class="">"every server write to all the luns"</i></u>
                      its intended or not?<br class="">
                      <br class="">
                      Thanks in advance,<br class="">
                      Salvatore<br class="">
                    </font> </div>
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