[lug] clustering/network help and ideas...

[Dallas Masters]

I mostly lurk, but I'm working on some ideas for a network or
pseudo-cluster that need help with the file system.  The LAN will be
made up of Gigabit connected "clients."  I want use the cheap disks in
each machine to be part of a growable, LAN-wide, transparent file
system rather than use a centralized file system server.  In fact, I
don't foresee that I will have any real server, except for one or two
clients which do web services, etc.  This is because it's simple and
frequent that we buy new desktops machine which always have lots of
disk space and are under-utilized (the LAN will be a new model network
in the Aerospace Dept. at CU).  I have looked into GFS, PVFS, and AFS
for the file system.  Not exactly sure which one is best.  I'm sure
NFS would work, but it seems slow and insecure (NFSv4?).  I am
imagining GFS using local disks as global network block devices (GNBD)
served from each client machine.  But my understanding of GFS is still
vague.  Is it a faster or easier solution than NFS serving and
mounting on each client?  Is GFS only really useful in "real"
clusters?  Any ideas or advice would be appreciated.

Dallas
-- 
Dallas Masters, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Aerospace Engineering Sciences
CB 431 / CCAR
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0431
(303) 492-4075