Have you considered Network-Attached Storage? I've not got a whole lot of knowledge in that specific area, but I think the idea is to have your network storage independent of your servers - "It just works".
William > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On Behalf Of Evan McNabb > Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 1:53 PM > To: BYU Unix Users Group > Subject: Re: to MP or not MP? that is the question (was [uug] NFS vs > SAMBA) > > Soren and I are buds so I don't want him to think I'm attacking him and > CADEM... :-) > > The CS dept network and the CADEM labs are not the same. We each have > different > classes to cater to and problems to worry about. Being a sys admin for two > years > I've heard plenty of complaints about BOTH the CS and CADEM setups. > > If the students think this problem with our file server has caused them > problems, it > has been literally a 500x worse than us. We can't figure out what the > exact source > of the problem is, nor the many people who have helped us look into the > issue. Besides > this problem (and it is a major one that will be solved within a few > weeks), I haven't > heard of any recent problems (ok, well Windows profiles suck too, but > Byron fixed that). > > I respect the CADEM admins for their work and I believe they have a good > setup. But > since we have different needs, we do things differently. After a lot of > experience > we have found that one fileserver is what we need; we could do it with a > cluster, but > it has overall worked well with the single server (besides this problem > we've had for > the last 6 months with IO). > > I think think it's funny how people (users) complain about problems. Until > you've been a > sys admin over a large network (in our case 200 linux boxes, 150 windows, > ~7 - 8 > servers) you really don't know about how complicated things get. People > come in > to the office and complain about our samba setup and I see them post > questions to > the list a week later because they can't even get two machines to talk > together. There > is a HUGE difference between admining 5 and 50 computers. > > Also, I know that as a student you pay for computers to use and those > should > be maintained well. Just to let you know, we really do care that the boxes > and networks > are running smoothly. You see, sys admins do care. :-) > > I'm not trying to bash anyone, just reminding people to have constructive > criticism > and remember how hard it can be. I don't give OIT as hard of a time as I > used to > since I've personally had to deal with serious issues. > > Well, my rant is over. Kudos to the world's sys admins, and good work guys > in the CADEM. > > -Evan > > P.S. Beware of the L.A.R.T :-) > http://bofhcam.org/co-larters/lart-reference/ > > > So? The same thing happens when a monolithic server fills up. I > > guarantee you that all the space that the new CS server has won't last > more > > than 4 years; they will eventually have to get a new one, or an > > additional one. Building a modular system at the beginning forces you > > into the plan-for-expansion mindset. If you're starting with 6 NFS > > servers, it's easy to design the system to accomodate 8 or 20. However, > > if you start with the mindset of having only one server, then try as you > > might, there will be some design fallacies that make migrating to 2 or > > more difficult, if not impossible. Nobody takes the time to set up a > > load-balancing system for just one webserver, and always ends up kicking > > themselves when they have to re-design their network when adding the > > second server becomes necessary. > > > > On top of that, there's the financial aspect. A lot of small servers is > > almost always cheaper than one big server, and believe it or not, > > they're almost always easier to maintain. > > -- > /********************************************************************\ > Evan McNabb: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > http://evan.mcnabbs.org > System Administrator, CS Department, BYU > GnuPG Fingerprint: 53B5 EDCA 5543 A27A E0E1 2B2F 6776 8F9C 6A35 6EA5 > \********************************************************************/ ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
