Improving NFS Performance on HPC Clusters with Dell Fluid Cache for DAS
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Contents
Executive Summary
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5
1.
Introduction
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6
1.1.
Dell Fluid Cache for DAS (direct-attached storage)
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6
2.
Solution design and architecture
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6
2.1.
NFS storage solution (baseline)
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7
2.2.
Dell Fluid Cache for DAS based solution
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9
2.3.
I/O clients test bed
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10
2.4.
Solution tuning
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2.4.1.
Storage
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13
2.4.2.
NFS server
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13
2.4.3.
Dell Fluid Cache for DAS
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14
2.5.
Tracking solution health and performance
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2.5.1.
Server health and monitoring
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2.5.2.
Dell PowerEdge Express Flash PCIe SSD health and monitoring
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2.5.3.
Dell Fluid Cache for DAS health and monitoring
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3.
Performance
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3.1.
Sequential writes and reads
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3.2.
Random writes and reads
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3.3.
Metadata tests
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3.4.
Cold-cache tests
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4.
Conclusion
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5.
References
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Appendix A: Step-by-step configuration of Dell Fluid Cache for NFS
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A.1.
Hardware checklist and cabling
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A.2.
NFS server set up
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A.3.
NFS server configuration and tuning
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A.4.
Virtual disk configuration
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A.5.
XFS and DFC configuration
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A.6.
Useful commands and references
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A.7.
Performance tuning on clients
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Appendix B: Benchmarks and tests
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B.1.
IOzone
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B.2.
mdtest
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