[gpfsug-discuss] GPFS Routers

Aaron Knister aaron.s.knister at nasa.gov
Tue Sep 20 14:22:51 BST 2016


Hi Marc,

Currently we serve three disparate infiniband fabrics with three 
separate sets of NSD servers all connected via FC to backend storage.

I was exploring the idea of flipping that on its head and having one set 
of NSD servers but would like something akin to Lustre LNET routers to 
connect each fabric to the back-end NSD servers over IB. I know there's 
IB routers out there now but I'm quite drawn to the idea of a GPFS 
equivalent of Lustre LNET routers, having used them in the past.

I suppose I could always smush some extra HCAs in the NSD servers and do 
it that way but that got really ugly when I started factoring in 
omnipath. Something like an LNET router would also be useful for GNR 
users who would like to present to both an IB and an OmniPath fabric 
over RDMA.

-Aaron

On 9/12/16 10:48 AM, Marc A Kaplan wrote:
> Perhaps if you clearly describe what equipment and connections you have
> in place and what you're trying to accomplish, someone on this board can
> propose a solution.
>
> In principle, it's always possible to insert proxies/routers to "fake"
> any two endpoints into "believing" they are communicating directly.
>
>
>
>
>
> From:        Aaron Knister <aaron.s.knister at nasa.gov>
> To:        <gpfsug-discuss at spectrumscale.org>
> Date:        09/11/2016 08:01 PM
> Subject:        Re: [gpfsug-discuss] GPFS Routers
> Sent by:        gpfsug-discuss-bounces at spectrumscale.org
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> After some googling around, I wonder if perhaps what I'm thinking of was
> an I/O forwarding layer that I understood was being developed for x86_64
> type machines rather than some type of GPFS protocol router or proxy.
>
> -Aaron
>
> On 9/11/16 5:02 PM, Knister, Aaron S. (GSFC-606.2)[COMPUTER SCIENCE
> CORP] wrote:
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> A while back I seem to recall hearing about a mechanism being developed
>> that would function similarly to Lustre's LNET routers and effectively
>> allow a single set of NSD servers to talk to multiple RDMA fabrics
>> without requiring the NSD servers to have infiniband interfaces on each
>> RDMA fabric. Rather, one would have a set of GPFS gateway nodes on each
>> fabric that would in effect proxy the RDMA requests to the NSD server.
>> Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Just curious if it's still on
>> the roadmap.
>>
>> -Aaron
>>
>>
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>>
>
> --
> Aaron Knister
> NASA Center for Climate Simulation (Code 606.2)
> Goddard Space Flight Center
> (301) 286-2776
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>
>
>
>
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-- 
Aaron Knister
NASA Center for Climate Simulation (Code 606.2)
Goddard Space Flight Center
(301) 286-2776



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