Re: [Xen-users] Network Storage

["lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> treat xen domUs like any other physical server. You allocate a
> different LUNs for each domU. Other than giving higher I/O
> performance, this method has the added benefit that it allows easy
> converting between domU <-> real servers.

Do you mean something like having a SCSI chassis attached to the VM server, 
then exporting LUNs to each guest? Does this not defeat the idea of 
virtualizing the guests? Obviously, I am missing something.

I'm not sure I want to get into messing with figuring out how to give guests 
direct access to say an FC adapter in the VM server but perhaps it's just as 
easy. If so, then each server could easily have direct attached access to it's 
shared storage such as GFS. A virtual GFS cluster sounds fun.
 
> In the end we find
> that local storage actually provides MUCH higher I/O throughput, since
> it has "dedicated" disks with plenty of I/O bandwitdh :p

Ok, so you are just talking about local storage for the VM server, not so much 
the individual guests.
 
> As a side note, if you're already familiar with FC filers, you might
> want to try SUN's new Unified Storage or even a simple

We're just a small house and don't have a big budget, especially in this 
economy.
That said, I have put together some pretty good hardware. I use a couple of 
smaller BlueArc filers to export NFS/CIFS shares and have a couple of BlueArc 
TITAN filers for when I need very fast I/O.
I am also experimenting with building my own storage devices at this point. For 
example, I've just put together a CentOS server with 4TB of storage using 
parted and will be looking for leads on how to optimize I/O from such a machine 
which will do nothing but server NFS shares.

Mike


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