[OpenAFS] AFS Server & SMP

[David Thompson]

We're running a test server right now that's a Dell something-or-other with 2 
550MHz PIIIs on it.  PC hardware is a little different from IBM and ALPHAs in 
that it can be pretty cost-effective to go dual CPU.  It's serving up a mirror 
site at cs.wisc.edu.  Mostly the access is via ftp/http/rsync 
(mirror.cs.wisc.edu), although you can also get to it via afs 
(/afs/cs.wisc.edu/mirrors).  Right now, there's about 150 gigs used out of 200 
available in a combination of hardware and software RAID.  Quite frankly, 
we've been having _many_ more problems with buggy kernel scsi drivers (that 
work with all our bizarro hardware RAID controllers) than with the OpenAFS 
file server.  Excellent work, guys!

On the other question, we're running the 1.2.2 client on the very recent 7.1 
update kernel, which is almost identical to the 7.2 kernel (both 2.4.9 
variants).  We're running it on ~75 workstations, and I haven't heard of any 
problems.

Dave


Jimmy Engelbrecht wrote:
>Nuno Miguel Neves <nneves@di.fc.ul.pt> writes:
>
>> I've been searching this on previous messages, but can't seem to find it. (m
>aybe a bad search :) )
>> 
>> How is the AFS server working with dual processor machines? More
>> specifically, I am in the process of buying IBM xSeries 220 machines
>> with dual processor, and I would like to know if it is worth buying
>> the second processor :).
>
>I do belive that buying 2 servers with 1 CPU each instead of 1 server
>with 2 CPU pays better off.
>
>We bought 4 singe-CPU-alphasservers(DS10) a few months ago, they
>perform very very well as AFS-servers (250-400 clients), a 2-CPU
>mashine would cost more than double the price, i do not belive it
>would be better with 2 2CPU-servers instead. Especcially if you have a
>lot of replicated data.
>
>of course i dont know anything about pricing of your IBM-machine but i
>assume that buying a 2 CPU-machine is at least 60-70% more expensive
>that a 1 CPU-machine.
>
>/Jimmy
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