[OpenAFS] Using AFS in a cluster?

[Ron Croonenberg]

Hi Tim,

looks like a good idea to me.  We have an OpenSSI cluster that we use 
for teaching graphics classes and we also use as our "general" machine 
for students and faculty to use for they unix account.

I built that setup about a year ago,  however I had to make some kernel 
mods and change some stuff in the afs kernel modules to make it all 
work. but it has been humming happily since then. users can use their 
afs accounts on that cluster, regular Unix boxes, Mac's and PC's without 
any issues. We also have a beowulf cluster using the same afs cell.



It does the job here. (The only thing missing that would be great is if 
the windows client for afs would be "LDAP aware" similar to our setup 
for the linux boxes.

Ron

Tim Theisen wrote:
> I am thinking about using AFS in a Rocks Cluster.
> 
> I have a job that runs in two parts.  The first part computes
> intermediate data and writes it (about 1 Gig) into the local file
> system.  The second part reads this intermediate data and does a final
> calculation.  The intermediate data can be used lots of times for
> different final calculations.  The final job will rebalance/recalculate
> the intermediate data if nodes appear/disappear.  We currently use small
> clusters, so all nodes participate in the calculation.
> 
> I would like to use larger clusters and provide for the possibility that
> the nodes doing the final calculation are not the same nodes that did
> the intermediate calculation.  However, in most cases, the set of nodes
> will be the same.  So, I desire a network file system that provides
> location independence with strong local caching.  I think that AFS would
> fit that bill.  If the front end is the fileserver and each node has a 4
> Gigabyte cache, I think that I get what I want.
> 
> Each client would store the intermediate results into AFS.  The
> intermediate data stays in the local cache to be read again.  If this
> node becomes unavailable, the data can be read from the fileserver.
> 
> Do you think this is a good idea?  Are there other possibilities that I
> should consider?
> 
> ...Tim
> --
>        Tim Theisen                     Lead Research Software Engineer
> Phone: +1 608 824 2848                 TomoTherapy Incorporated
>   Fax: +1 608 824 2996                 1240 Deming Way
>   Web: http://www.tomotherapy.com      Madison, WI 53717-1954  
> 
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