[Lustre-discuss] Network MDT possible?

[Brian J. Murrell]

On Tue, 2008-09-23 at 16:16 -0400, Ms. Megan Larko wrote:
> Hi,

Hi,

> General question:  I know that a Lustre filesystem may have only one
> MGS running in-general and only one MDS for a specific lustre
> filesystem (for example, /usrdisk and /admin1).

Correct.

> Is there a way in
> which  a Lustre filesystem may have one MGS and one MDS which runs on
> another machine in the network?

Sure.  There is no requirement that the MGS and MDT be in the same
machine.

> I have an MGS/MDS combo running right now.

Ugh.  You really should [have] separate[d] them.  We didn't really
intend combo mgs/mdts for more than the most simple and/or "toy"
deployments.

> I wish to add more disk
> space to our Lustre clients,

More space to an existing filesystem or a new filesystem?

> I have no disks available in the
> current MGS/MDS on which to create an MDT for the new /scr1 disk.  Can
> I point the MGS to use a disk physically on another computer as the
> MDT?

Sure.

> Lower priority question:  Is lustre a good tool for such a user
> scratch disk system?

If the use case/needs of your scratch filesystem meet Lustre's
abilities, sure.  In general Lustre shines in cases of large files that
need lots of I/O bandwidth.  It's not so good at the "small file"
scenario though.  It's not terrible, just not great.

b.

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