Need some pointers in this problem (inside...)

Vlad_M · 09-03-2002, 01:53 PM

I am busy with an undergrad project that has deteriorated beyon what I
thought possible, and I am basically sitting now with the following specs
(if it seems confusing that is because I am very confused...)

"Using available hardware (ISA & PCI SCSI cards, 20x IBM SCSI 18GB Ultrastar
Ultra2SCSI disks and a mchine running a Linux (or *nix) operating system
design a network file server. The design must be accompanied with the
benchmarks substantiating where the major bottlenecks are in the system,
starting from the host on the bus level all the way to the network. The disk
subsystem of the host computer (server) must be arranged in a RAID
configuration, controlled by the built in kernel-level RAID implemenation."

I am totally stuck, I don't know where to start, where to look, hat to read,
what to do.....this is my undergraduate thesis project, and I am in a state
of a panic right now.

So if anyone can give me any pointers I would be very grateful. I am not
looking to be spoon fed, am not lazy nor anything like that, I am just stuck
and need some info.

I can write more, however I'll just see if anyone takes any interest in this
thread before a type out to pages worth of mail...

Thanks to all that read this...

Mara · 09-03-2002, 02:37 PM

I think it's interesting. To have RAID support you need to compile a kernel with th right options (jut run make menuconfig/make xconfig and read help for the options), read Software-RAID-HOWTO (quite old, but useful, you can download it from www.tldp.org), decide what kond of fileserver you're going to build (Samba, NFS,...)...

Vlad_M · 09-04-2002, 06:55 AM

Hi Mara thanks for the reply...

Yeah, that part is interesting...WHat is worrying me to death is that my supervisor wants me to banchmark each and every aspect of that system...That is where I need the advice. I don't know how I would go about benchmarking the various components, and finding out where the bottlenecks are? Especially at the network level, how would I find out what kind of performance I am getting there?

My aim is to perform the tests and then based on the results of those tests propose an ideal solution in this case. Then I need to put that configuration together, and test that and show that I was correct in my predictions, or if I was incorrect, why I was incorrect.

Thanks for the links, I have read thru the HOWTO and I understand RAID much better now. WHat is the difference between the different servers, and could you point me to any links which will explain the differences to me?

I was rather hoping that more people would look into this thread...

Thanks for your time!!

acid_kewpie · 09-04-2002, 07:07 AM

well the differences in the servers is that they do utterly different things.... you presumably got to decide what you want to serve.

i would point out that this is homework, and as such shouldn't be posted here at all, but you're not asking for a solution to a spefic question so i guess it's ok as long as only general comments are made on the issue

hanzerik · 09-04-2002, 07:27 AM

Read up on samba and NFS, and do a search on www.google.com/linux on howto benchmark samba, there are programs out there that are for doing that.

Mara · 09-04-2002, 11:10 AM

You have the whole category for benchmarks at freshemeat: http://freshmeat.net/browse/138/?topic_id=138
Look which ones you can use, which ones you need, test them.

Vlad_M · 09-04-2002, 12:53 PM

First of all, acid_kewpie, I really hope that I didn't break any rules by posting this. I pointed out that I am not looking for a quick fix, but this thing is more than homework, my future depends on it and I am really worried about it.

Anyway, the guys that gave me some comments, thank you very much. I guess that what this hypothetical server will be serving is files. Let me elaborate on that : it will be serving very large image files (I am working as a part of a radar group and they are working ith these huge images). I don't know whether that would be Samba or NFS, but I am working on finding that out.

I know that there are programs that benchmark almost everything, but I don't know ho I will be able to say which component is being the bottleneck in the whole deal. There is one question that I can not find an answer to, and that is what does it mean if a switch is non-blocking? I cannot come up with an answer to that.

Anyway, the reason why I am really panicking is cos the project is growing larger and larger all the time, and I feel like I am going in circles....

Off to find some more info, I hope that you keep up the pointers
Cheers.

Sfin · 09-04-2002, 03:17 PM

Quote:

"A switch is said to be non-blocking if the switching fabric is capable of handling the theoretical total of all ports, such that any routing request to any free output port can be established successfully without interfering other traffics."

I got this from here:

http://www.csis.hku.hk/~atctam/phdthesis/node25.html

Vlad_M · 09-04-2002, 03:45 PM

My sincerest thanks!!! Right after I posted the question, I came up with an exactly same page from google...heh. I guess I was a bit too quick to say I couldn't find anything.
Thanks for letting me know, anyway.