[PVFS2-users] PVFS2 and OpenGFS

[Robert Latham]

On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 10:44:33AM +0100, Alessandro wrote:
> I need a comparison between PVFS2 and OpenGFS, for our choice about
> a cluster file system.  (We have kernel 2.4.24 on all machine, gcc
> 3.2.2/3.2.3, Linux RedHat 9) Where can I find some information?  Is
> there a benchmark to comparison them?

Hi Alessandro.  Sorry for the lateness of my reply.  I haven't used
GFS in a few years, so I readily admit my experiences are dated.

Before you can chose what cluster file system you want, you first have
to know what kind of applications you will run.  

OpenGFS is a good choice if you have a few nodes and the applications
on those nodes do not need to perform IO in parallel.  GFS has gotten
better over the years with parallel IO, but simultaneous writes to a
file will stress the locking subsystem pretty hard.  

PVFS2 is a good choice if you have applications that perform a lot of
coordinated and simultaneous IO.  Additionally, PVFS2 requires much
less hardware.  No need for a SAN, Fibre channel, or other storage
hardware.  

If you want to provide a cluster-wide file system for home directories
(and the kinds of workloads a home directory usually faces), give
opengfs a shot.  That's the ideal workload for that file system.  If
you have a different worklaod in mind, try PVFS2 -- and let us know
how it goes. 

==rob

-- 
Rob Latham
Mathematics and Computer Science Division    A215 0178 EA2D B059 8CDF
Argonne National Labs, IL USA                B29D F333 664A 4280 315B