Hi Bobbie,<br><br>Small file performance is an issue. <br>It is the caching that balances it out. Due to the nature of the work, all nodes in a given pool will always ask for the same set of files. So the initial response to requests may be slow, but the subsequent ones are fine. <br>
<br>As I had mentioned earlier, we also had problems with listing large directories. We worked around it by having a cron job on the Samba Gateway get the file stat in large directories at regular intervals, thereby keeping the OSS vfs cache primed at all times.<br>
<br>Play around with these parameters on MDS, OSS and Gateway ...it works out differently for everyone -<br>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
sysctl -w vm.vfs_cache_pressure=2<br>sysctl -w vm.dirty_ratio=15<br>sysctl -w vm.swappiness=90 #Swapping out regularly makes more space for caches<br>sysctl -w vm.dirty_background_ratio=4<br>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>On the Gateways / Clients, run after each time you mount Lustre -<br>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
pushd /proc/fs/lustre/osc<br>for ost in *-OST*<br>do<br> echo 32 > ${ost}/max_rpcs_in_flight<br>done<br>popd<br><br>lctl set_param osc.*.max_dirty_mb=512<br>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>/proc/fs/lustre/llite/<fsname>-<uid>/max_read_ahead_mb # at default 40MB, as most of our files are in the 10MB range<br>
<br>/proc/fs/lustre/llite/<fsname>-<uid>/max_read_ahead_whole_mb # set to 10MB<br>/proc/fs/lustre/llite/*/statahead_max # set to 8192<br>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>Regards,<br><br><br>Indivar Nair<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 12:55 AM, Lind, Bobbie J <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bobbie.j.lind@intel.com" target="_blank">bobbie.j.lind@intel.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Indivar,<br>
<br>
I would be very interested to see what tuning parameters you have set to<br>
tune lustre and the storage for small files. I have had similar setups in<br>
the past and been stumped by the small file performance.<br>
<br>
--<br>
Bobbie Lind<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
>Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:24:32 -0500<br>
>From: greg whynott <<a href="mailto:greg.whynott@gmail.com">greg.whynott@gmail.com</a>><br>
>Subject: Re: [Lustre-discuss] is Luster ready for prime time?<br>
>To: Indivar Nair <<a href="mailto:indivar.nair@techterra.in">indivar.nair@techterra.in</a>><br>
>Cc: "<a href="mailto:lustre-discuss@lists.lustre.org">lustre-discuss@lists.lustre.org</a>"<br>
> <<a href="mailto:lustre-discuss@lists.lustre.org">lustre-discuss@lists.lustre.org</a>><br>
>Message-ID:<br>
> <CAKuzA1G4-W122LQrf3VKqADd=<a href="mailto:WrDgcAVx5hyAGJfZwwR8KKG2g@mail.gmail.com">WrDgcAVx5hyAGJfZwwR8KKG2g@mail.gmail.com</a>><br>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"<br>
<div class="im">><br>
>Thanks very much Indivar, informative read. it is good to see others<br>
>in<br>
>our sector are using the technology and you have some good points.<br>
><br>
>have a great day,<br>
>greg<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
>On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 6:52 AM, Indivar Nair<br>
><<a href="mailto:indivar.nair@techterra.in">indivar.nair@techterra.in</a>>wrote:<br>
><br>
>> Hi Greg,<br>
>><br>
>> One of our customers had a similar requirement and we deployed Lustre<br>
>> 2.0.0.1 for them. This was in July 2011. Though there were a lots of<br>
>> problems initially, all of them were sorted out over time. They are<br>
>>quite<br>
>> happy with it now.<br>
>><br>
</div>>> *Environment:*<br>
<div class="im">>> Its a 150 Artist studio with around 60 Render nodes. The studio mainly<br>
>> uses Mocha, After Effects, Silhouette, Synth Eye, Maya, and Nuke among<br>
>> others. They mainly work on 3D Effects and Stereoscopy Conversions.<br>
>> Around 45% of Artists and Render Nodes are on Linux and use native<br>
>>Lustre<br>
>> Client. All others access it through Samba.<br>
>><br>
</div>>> *Lustre Setup:*<br>
<div class="im">>> It consists of 2 x Dell R610 as MDS Nodes, and 4 x Dell R710 as OSS<br>
>>Nodes.<br>
>> 2 x Dell MD3200 with 12x1TB SAS Nearline Disks are used for storage.<br>
>>Each<br>
>> Dell MD3200s are shared among 2 OSS nodes for H/A.<br>
>><br>
>> Since the original plan (which didn't happen) was to move to a 100%<br>
>>Linux<br>
>> environment, we didn't allocate separate Samba Gateways and use the OSS<br>
>> nodes with CTDB for it. Thankfully, we haven't had any issues with that<br>
>>yet.<br>
>><br>
</div>>> *Performance:*<br>
<div class="im">>> We get a good THROUGHPUT of 800 - 1000MB/s with Lustre Caching. The<br>
>>disks<br>
>> it self provide much lesser speeds. But that is fine, as caching is in<br>
>> effect most of the time.<br>
>><br>
</div>>> *Challenge:*<br>
<div class="im">>> The challenge for us was to tune the storage for small files 10 - 50MB<br>
>> totalling to 10s of GBs. An average shot would consist of 2000 - 4000<br>
>>.dpx<br>
>> images. Some Scenes / Shots also had millions of <1MB Maya Cache files.<br>
>> This did tax the storage, especially the MDS. Fixed it to an extent by<br>
>> adding more RAM to MDS.<br>
>><br>
</div>>> *Suggestions:*<br>
<div><div class="h5">>><br>
>> 1. Get the real number of small files (I mean <1MB ones) created / used<br>
>>by<br>
>> all software. These are the ones that could give you the most trouble.<br>
>>Do<br>
>> not assume anything.<br>
>><br>
>> 2. Get the file - sizes, numbers and access patterns absolutely correct.<br>
>> This is the key.<br>
>> Its easier to design and tune Lustre for large files and I/O.<br>
>><br>
>> 3. Network tuning is as important and storage tuning. Tune Switches,<br>
>>each<br>
>> Workstation, Render Nodes, Samba / NFS Gateways, OSS Nodes, MDS Nodes,<br>
>> everything.<br>
>><br>
>> 4. Similarly do not undermine Samba / NFS Gateway. Size and tune them<br>
>> correctly too.<br>
>><br>
>> 5. Use High Speed Switching like QDR Infiniband or 40GigE, especially<br>
>>for<br>
>> backend connectivity between Samba/NFS Gateway and Lustre MDS/OSS Nodes.<br>
>><br>
>> 6. As far as possible, have fixed directory pattern for all projects.<br>
>> Separate working files (Maya, Nuke, etc.) from the data, i.e. frames /<br>
>> images, videos, etc. at the top directory level it self. This will help<br>
>>you<br>
>> tune / manage the storage better. Different directory tree for different<br>
>> file sizes or file access types.<br>
>><br>
>> If designed and tuned right, I think Lustre is best storage currently<br>
>> available for your kind of work.<br>
>><br>
>> Hope this helps.<br>
>><br>
>> Regards,<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> Indivar Nair<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 1:51 AM, greg whynott<br>
>><<a href="mailto:greg.whynott@gmail.com">greg.whynott@gmail.com</a>>wrote:<br>
>><br>
>>> Hi Charles,<br>
>>><br>
>>> I received a few off list challenging email messages along with a few<br>
>>> fishing ones, but its all good. its interesting how a post asking a<br>
>>> question can make someone appear angry. 8)<br>
>>><br>
>>> Our IO profiles from the different segments of our business do vary<br>
>>> greatly. The HPC is more or less the typical load you would expect to<br>
>>> see, depending on which software is in use for the for the job being<br>
>>>ran.<br>
>>> We have hundreds of artists and administrative staff who use the<br>
>>>file<br>
>>> system in a variety of ways. Some examples would include but not<br>
>>>limited<br>
>>> to: saving out multiple revisions of photoshop documents (typically<br>
>>>in the<br>
>>> hundreds of megs to +1gig range), video editing (stereoscopic 2k and<br>
>>>4k<br>
>>> images(again from 10's 100's to gigs in size) including uncompressed<br>
>>> video, excel, word and similar files, thousands of project files<br>
>>>(from<br>
>>> software such as Maya, Nuke and similar) these also vary largely in<br>
>>>size,<br>
>>> from 1 to thousands of megs in size.<br>
>>><br>
>>> The intention is keep our data bases and VM requirements on the<br>
>>>existing<br>
>>> file system which is comprised of about 100 10k SAS drives, it works<br>
>>>well.<br>
>>><br>
>>> We did consider GPFS but that consideration went out the door once I<br>
>>> started talking to them and hammering in some numbers into their online<br>
>>> calculator. Things got a bit crazy quickly. They have different<br>
>>>pricing<br>
>>> for the different types and speeds of Intel CPUs. I got the feeling<br>
>>>they<br>
>>> were trying to squeeze every penny out of customers they could. felt<br>
>>>very<br>
>>> Brocade-ish and left a bad taste with us. wouldn't of been much of a<br>
>>> problem as some other shops I've worked at, but here we do have a<br>
>>>finite<br>
>>> budget to work within.<br>
>>><br>
>>> The NAS vendors could all be considered scale out I suspect. All 3<br>
>>>can<br>
>>> scale out the storage and front end. NA C-mode can have up to 24<br>
>>>heads,<br>
>>> Blue Arc goes up to 4 or 8 depending on the class, Isilon can go up<br>
>>>to 24<br>
>>> nodes or more as well if memory serves me correctly, and they all<br>
>>>have a<br>
>>> single name space solution in place. They each have their limits,<br>
>>>but<br>
>>> for our use case they are really subjective. We will not hit the<br>
>>>limits<br>
>>> of their scalability before we are considering a fork lift refresh.<br>
>>>In our<br>
>>> view, for what they offer it is perty much a wash for them - any would<br>
>>> meet our needs. NetApp still has a silly agg/vol size limit, at<br>
>>>least it<br>
>>> is up to 90TB now (from 9 in the past(formatted fs use)).. in April<br>
>>>it is<br>
>>> suppose to go much higher.<br>
>>><br>
>>> The block storage idea in the mix - since all our HPC is linux, they<br>
>>> all would become luster clients. To provide a gateway into the luster<br>
>>> storage for none linux/luster hosts the thinking was a clustered pair<br>
>>>of<br>
>>> linux boxes running SAMBA/NFS which were also Luster clients. Its<br>
>>>just<br>
>>> an idea being bounced around at this point. The data serving<br>
>>>requirements<br>
>>> of the non HPC parts of the business are much less. The video editors<br>
>>> most likely would stay on our existing storage solution as that is<br>
>>>working<br>
>>> out very well for them, but even if we did put them onto the Luster<br>
>>>FS, I<br>
>>> think they would be fine. based on that, it didn't seem so crazy to<br>
>>> consider block access in this method. that said, I think we would<br>
>>>be one<br>
>>> of the first in M&E to do so, pioneers if you will...<br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>> diversify - we will end up in the same boat for the same reasons.<br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>> thanks Charles,<br>
>>> greg<br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:20 PM, Hammitt, Charles Allen <<br>
>>> <a href="mailto:chammitt@email.unc.edu">chammitt@email.unc.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
>>><br>
</div></div>>>>> ** **<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Somewhat surprised that no one has responded yet; although it?s likely<br>
>>>> that the responses would be rather subjective?including mine, of<br>
>>>>course!<br>
>>>> ****<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> ** **<br>
<div class="im">>>>><br>
>>>> Generally I would say that it would be interesting to know more about<br>
>>>> your datasets and intended workload; however, you mention this is to<br>
>>>>be<br>
</div>>>>> used as your day-to-day main business storage?so I imagine those<br>
>>>> characteristics would greatly vary? mine certainly do; that much is<br>
>>>>for<br>
>>>> sure!****<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> ** **<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> I don?t really think uptime would be as much an issue here; there are<br>
<div class="im">>>>> lots of redundancies, recovery mechanisms, and plenty of stable<br>
>>>>branches to<br>
</div>>>>> choose from?the question becomes what are the feature-set needs,<br>
<div class="im">>>>> performance usability for different file types and workloads, and<br>
>>>>general<br>
>>>> comfort level with greater complexity and somewhat less resources.<br>
>>>>That<br>
</div>>>>> said, I?d personally be a bit wary of using it as a general<br>
>>>>filesystem for<br>
>>>> *all* your needs. ****<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> ** **<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> ** **<br>
<div class="im">>>>><br>
>>>> I do find it interesting that your short list is a wide range mix of<br>
>>>> storage and filesystem types; traditional NAS, scale-out NAS, and<br>
>>>>then some<br>
>>>> block storage with a parallel filesytem in Lustre. Why no GPFS on<br>
>>>>the list<br>
</div>>>>> for comparison?****<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> ** **<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> I currently manage, or have used in the past *[bluearc]*, all the<br>
<div class="im">>>>> storage / filesystems and more from your list. The reason being is<br>
>>>>that<br>
>>>> different storage and filesystems components have some things they<br>
>>>>are good<br>
</div>>>>> at? while other things they might not be as good at doing. So I<br>
<div class="im">>>>>diversify<br>
>>>> by putting different storage/filesystem component pieces in the areas<br>
>>>>where<br>
</div>>>>> they excel at best?****<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> ** **<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> ** **<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> ** **<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Regards,****<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> ** **<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Charles****<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> ** **<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> ** **<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> ** **<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> *From:* <a href="mailto:lustre-discuss-bounces@lists.lustre.org">lustre-discuss-bounces@lists.lustre.org</a> [mailto:<br>
>>>> <a href="mailto:lustre-discuss-bounces@lists.lustre.org">lustre-discuss-bounces@lists.lustre.org</a>] *On Behalf Of *greg whynott<br>
>>>> *Sent:* Thursday, January 17, 2013 12:18 PM<br>
>>>> *To:* <a href="mailto:lustre-discuss@lists.lustre.org">lustre-discuss@lists.lustre.org</a><br>
>>>><br>
>>>> *Subject:* [Lustre-discuss] is Luster ready for prime time?****<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> ** **<br>
<div class="im">>>>><br>
>>>> Hello,<br>
>>>><br>
>>>><br>
>>>> just signed up today, please forgive me if this question has been<br>
>>>> covered recently. - in a bit of a rush to get an answer on this as<br>
>>>>we need<br>
>>>> to make a decision soon, the idea of using luster was thrown into<br>
>>>>the mix<br>
>>>> very late in the decision making process.<br>
>>>><br>
</div>>>>> ****<br>
<div class="im">>>>><br>
>>>> We are looking to procure a new storage solution which will<br>
>>>> predominately be used for HPC output but will also be used as our main<br>
>>>> business centric storage for day to day use. Meaning the file system<br>
>>>>needs<br>
>>>> to be available 24/7/365. The last time I was involved in<br>
>>>>considering<br>
>>>> Luster was about 6 years ago and it was at that time being considered<br>
>>>>for<br>
</div>>>>> scratch space for HPC usage only. ****<br>
<div class="im">>>>><br>
>>>> Our VMs and databases would remain on non-luster storage as we already<br>
>>>> have that in place and it works well. The luster file system<br>
>>>>potentially<br>
>>>> would have everything else. Projects we work on typically take up to<br>
>>>>2<br>
>>>> years to complete and during that time we would want all assets to<br>
>>>>remain<br>
</div>>>>> on the file system.****<br>
<div class="im">>>>><br>
>>>> Some of the vendors on our short list include HDS(Blue Arc), Isilon<br>
>>>>and<br>
>>>> NetApp. Last week we started bouncing the idea of using Luster<br>
>>>>around.<br>
>>>> I'd love to use it if it is considered stable enough to do so.<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> your thoughts and/or comments would be greatly appreciated. thanks<br>
>>>>for<br>
>>>> your time.<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> greg<br>
>>>><br>
>>>><br>
</div>>>>> ****<br>
<div class="im">>>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>> _______________________________________________<br>
>>> Lustre-discuss mailing list<br>
>>> <a href="mailto:Lustre-discuss@lists.lustre.org">Lustre-discuss@lists.lustre.org</a><br>
>>> <a href="http://lists.lustre.org/mailman/listinfo/lustre-discuss" target="_blank">http://lists.lustre.org/mailman/listinfo/lustre-discuss</a><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>><br>
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