On Fri, 8 Sep 2006, Jim Sloey wrote:
> > Roch - PAE wrote:
> > The hard part is getting a set of simple requirements. As you go into
> > more complex data center environments you get hit with older Solaris
> > revs, other OSs, SOX compliance issues, etc. etc. etc. The world where
> > most of us seem to be playing with ZFS is on the lower end of the
> > complexity scale.
... reformatted ..
> I've been watching this thread and unfortunately fit this model. I'd
> hoped that ZFS might scale enough to solve my problem but you seem to be
> saying that it's mostly untested in large scale environments. About 7
> years ago we ran out of inodes on our UFS file systems. We used bFile as
> middleware for a while to distribute the files across multiple disks and
> then switched to VFS on SAN about 5 years ago. Distribution across file
> systems and inode depletion continued to be a problem so we switched
> middleware to another vendor that essentially compresses about 200 files
> into a single 10Mb archive and uses a DB to find the file within the
> archive on the correct disk. Expensive, complex and slow but effective
> solution until the latest license renewal when we got hit with a huge
> bill. I'd love to go back to a pure file system model and looked at
> Reiser4, JFS, NTFS and now ZFS for a way to support over 100 million
> small documents and 16Tb. We average 2 file reads and 1 file write per
> second 24/7 with expected growth to 24Tb. I'd be willing to scrap
> everything we have to find a non-proprietary long term solution. ZFS
> looked like it might provide an answer. Are you saying it's not really
> suitable for this type of application?
No - that's not what he is saying. Personally I think (from the info
presented) is that ZFS would be a viable long term solution to this
storage headache. But the neat thing about ZFS, is that, with a spare AMD
based box and, as few as 5 low-cost SATA drives, you can actually try
it[1].
Think about this for a Second. You can put together a test ZFS box for
less money than you would spend, in man-hours, talking about it as a
_possible_ solution.
[1] 5 to 10 SATA drives won't get you 16Tb - but it'll get you close
enough to model the system with a substantial portion of your dataset.
Regards,
Al Hopper Logical Approach Inc, Plano, TX. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Voice: 972.379.2133 Fax: 972.379.2134 Timezone: US CDT
OpenSolaris.Org Community Advisory Board (CAB) Member - Apr 2005
OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) Member - Feb 2006
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