iSCSI + GFS for web servers

[Mark Haney]

Hi Stephen,

I may not have been clear, so I'll go into a bit more detail on our setup.
Right now we have a single web server that houses our Joomla website.  The
site itself is being used by more than 20,000 teachers to share lesson
plans, content ideas and upload videos of them teaching for professional
development credit.  We've exceeded the capabilities of a single web server
(our DB server was converted to a MySQL cluster in November) and need to
add a second web server to handle the load.  (Side note: we're using vCloud
Air for these servers.)

Due to the massive amount of user created content (100GB or so), trying to
sync new content across web servers will be rather complicated and somewhat
messy, so the idea was to move the content to an iSCSI VM to centralize the
storage for multiple front ends to access.  I don't really need a storage
cluster, so much as a single location for this content.  I'm rather limited
in how Joomla is able to access this data since it's notorious for
hardcoding the locations used for that data.  For example the profile
images and shared pictures are all in the images/ directory.  Without
re-writing that section of joomla's code, moving the data out of that
folder won't work.  While a storage cluster might be in the cards later on,
a single storage VM will work for now.

Does this help clarify my problem?


On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 3:44 PM, Steven Jones <Steven.Jones at vuw.ac.nz> wrote:

> Hi Mark,
>
>
> Architecture wise, no it may not be your only option.
>
>
> Is there a reason to run iSCSI?  ie have you looked at gluster? I have run
> 3 node Ubuntu Gluster cluster (converted to Centos currently) acting as a
> backend for VMware and KVM hosts.
>
>
> Gluster's dis-advantage is the writes are equivalent of 30~40% of a single
> disk's speed but the read are as fast or faster (for multiple nodes) making
> it good enough for web and streaming.   Advantages, it also with 3 nodes
> offers failover and a distributed raid 1 to protect against data loss.  It
> is also very cheap to do needing no fancy and expensive hardware.
>
>
> Not sure why you need GFS if only one computer is uploading while other
> multiple (web) servers read?  Even if you have multiple writes then Gluster
> strikes me as a potentially better solution for you as the write doesnt
> strike me as being significant.
>
>
>
> regards
>
> Steven
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* ubuntu-users-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com <
> ubuntu-users-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com> on behalf of Mark Haney <
> mark.haney at vifprogram.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, 2 February 2016 8:51 a.m.
> *To:* Ubuntu user technical support, not for general discussions
> *Subject:* iSCSI + GFS for web servers
>
> Anyone know of a decent howto/tutorial on how to setup GFS2 in Ubuntu for
> an iSCSI VM?  I want to centralize our web server user content using iSCSI
>  and I will need a second web server to be able to see the data as its
> uploaded, so my only option is to setup GFS2.  I used GFS a half-decade or
> so ago, but have never used GFS2.
>
> Has anyone setup something similar and can share their knowledge with me?
>
>
> --
>
> Mark Haney ::: Senior Systems Engineer
> *VIF* International Education
> P.O. Box 3566 ::: Chapel Hill, N.C. 27515 ::: USA
> 919-265-5006 office
>
> Global learning for all.
> www.vifprogram.com
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-- 

Mark Haney ::: Senior Systems Engineer
*VIF* International Education
P.O. Box 3566 ::: Chapel Hill, N.C. 27515 ::: USA
919-265-5006 office

Global learning for all.
www.vifprogram.com
<http://www.vifprogram.com/?utm_source=signature&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=VIF>
Find VIF on Facebook <http://facebook.com/VIFInternationalEducation> |
Twitter <https://twitter.com/vifglobaled> | LinkedIn
<http://www.linkedin.com/company/vif-international-education>

Recognized as a ‘Best for the World’
<http://bestfortheworld.bcorporation.net/> B Corp!
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