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Hi All,
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<div class="">Googling \u201cGPFS and iSCSI\u201d doesn\u2019t produce a ton of hits! But we are interested to know if anyone is actually using GPFS over iSCSI?</div>
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<div class="">The reason why I\u2019m asking is that we currently use an 8 Gb FC SAN \u2026 QLogic SANbox 5800\u2019s, QLogic HBA\u2019s in our NSD servers \u2026 but we\u2019re seeing signs that, especially when we start using beefier storage arrays with more disks behind the controllers,
the 8 Gb FC could be a bottleneck.</div>
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<div class="">As many / most of you are already aware, I\u2019m sure, while 16 Gb FC exists, there\u2019s basically only one vendor in that game. And guess what happens to prices when there\u2019s only one vendor??? We bought our 8 Gb FC switches for approximately $5K apiece.
List price on a <vendor redacted mainly because I don\u2019t even want to honor them by mentioning their name> 16 Gb FC switch - $40K. Ouch.</div>
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<div class="">So the idea of being able to use commodity 10 or 40 Gb Ethernet switches and HBA\u2019s is very appealing \u2026 both from a cost and a performance perspective (last I checked 40 Gb was more than twice 16 Gb!). Anybody doing this already?</div>
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<div class="">As those of you who\u2019ve been on this list for a while and don\u2019t filter out e-mails from me (<grin>) already know, we have a much beefier Infortrend storage array we\u2019ve purchased that I\u2019m currently using to test various metadata configurations (and
I will report back results on that when done, I promise). That array also supports iSCSI, so I actually have our test cluster GPFS filesystem up and running over iSCSI. It was surprisingly easy to set up. But any tips, suggestions, warnings, etc. about
running GPFS over iSCSI are appreciated!</div>
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<div class="">Two things that I am already aware of are: 1) use jumbo frames, and 2) run iSCSI over it\u2019s own private network. Other things I should be aware of?!?</div>
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<div class="">Thanks all\u2026</div>
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<div class="">\u2014</div>
<div class="">Kevin Buterbaugh - Senior System Administrator</div>
<div class="">Vanderbilt University - Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education</div>
<div class=""><a href="mailto:Kevin.Buterbaugh@vanderbilt.edu" class="">Kevin.Buterbaugh@vanderbilt.edu</a> - (615)875-9633</div>
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