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17411
September 19th, 2012 13:00
How to Share SAN without Clustering Software.
We have two Dell 1950 servers (Server A and Server B), running Windows 2003 x64 with Jboss services.
Server A already has 500GB of SAN attached to it using a Fiber HBA connected to our SAN Fabric.
Server B has a Fiber HBA installed also but it does not have 500GB of SAN because we have enabled both server A and Server B to see the same SAN LUN on Server A, on the Switch Fabric.
Requirement is to have the same volume Drive letter on both servers so they can read and write from it, but not simultaneously.
Question is how to enable both servers to see the same SAN LUN without Jboss Clustering or Microsoft Clustering.
Sharing the 500GB SAN volume will make it go through copper as a CIFS share.
I was thinking of connecting both servers directly via Fiber also for maximum IOPS.
Anyone know how to get this setup without clustering software ?
Dev Mgr
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September 19th, 2012 15:00
This won't be possible with your current OS. You have to have some kind of locking mechanism in place to regulate disk access.
You could look into solutions that use cluster aware filesystems like Red Hat's GFS (Global File System). This example is obviously part of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, so you'd have to change your OS.
jehanzeb
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September 19th, 2012 16:00
Thanks, Dev Mgr! Yes, changing OS will not be possible in the current configuration. Hoping the Fiber or 100GE Cross-over method works.
jehanzeb
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September 20th, 2012 13:00
Thanks, Don!
That is the main issue, no clustering software is being used.
Normally we use Microsoft Clustering for any shared SAN volumes.
In this case, we are unable to.
We already have the SAN volume shared via a UNC share on server B.
However, ultimately, the SAN throughput is limited to the copper NIC on Server A.
This is why I was thinking of running a Fiber Crossover cable or GigE crossover cable to copy files back and forth between servers for higher throughput.
Although, the Crossover cable idea may not work as both servers are on a LAN network and you need a Private Network for Crossover cable to communicate.
Does anyone know how you can enable file copy over the Private Crossover cable network explicitly?
Dev Mgr
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October 1st, 2012 11:00
If you want a faster server-to-server connection, you could look into getting 2 10Gbit NICs (copper or SFP+) and use a different subnet on there so you can point to the share by it's IP. This way you have a 10Gbit share-pipe from one server to the other server, but you don't have to worry about corrupting data due to sharing virtual disks without clustering.
jehanzeb
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October 1st, 2012 14:00
Thanks, Dev Mgr!
We tried to implement the crossover cable method but realized we needed to order a line card and a seperate nic for the private network, per server.
This not only was time consuming but won't work since there is only one slot left on these servers.
Pushing to get Jboss clustering setup soon.